Beginnings and Endings

I am reminded often that beginnings and endings look a lot alike. Sometimes, one is by choice, sometimes by chance. There is no off season, no hiatus, and no time to pause. They are welded together with memory and choice. How we cope with those beginnings and endings - bendings, that might be a good word - can determine whether we embrace them or loathe them.

We used to live in the south, a family passing-by an area of alligators, lizards, flip flops in winter, and dragonflies. I love watching the dragonflies swoop in and sail away. The above photo is from that time. We moved back north and didn't see a lot of dragonflies, definitely no alligators, lizards only in the pet store, and you could wear flip flops in the winter, but you'd freeze. Lately, I've been seeing dragonflies in random places. It makes me smile. It reminds me that this ending is a new beginning, a bending of time and space - literal space in this case.

This week my son and I are moving in with my mom and she is moving in with us. Meaning we are getting a house together in a new town, one where I go to college. I wanted to be closer to school, she knew she couldn't stay in the place where her and my dad lived. In the scope of my life seemingly bending backward, it's the next logical step, move back in with your mother. I joke, but I am excited. My mom is one of my best friends, my son and her share a birthday and a bond. She went through a lot to get to this point, just eight months after the death of my father. But these were conversations we had a lot in few years before his passing, when he was so sick. My mom is the model of tenacity, the woman who embraces the new beginning while cherishing the ending.

This week I am bending. I'm packing and contemplating everything that goes into a box. The sheer number of books I own disqualify me from ever being a minimalist. I intentionally have a lot of books and that's kind of my goal, to live intentionally. I'm trying not to look at the ending and see the failure, the unfinished tasks on the house, the ending of my marriage that took place here. There were happy beginnings, like my son taking his first trip abroad while we lived here. I took his picture while we were standing in the kitchen at zero-dark-thirty and realized he looked so grown up, more like a man than a boy. But there will be more trips abroad, there will be more beginnings.

It's raining outside, I like rainy mornings when I don't have to go anywhere. I'll like them more when I have a ten minute commute to school instead of a forty minute one. Maybe I'll see a dragonfly today. Probably, I won't. It's okay, I know they are out there, like the bendings.