Early Endings
By Colleen Edwards
We are nearing the end of another year and all I can say about that is… 2021, what a little bitch.
For the past few months, I have found myself wanting to exist in a different time, the before time, before 2021, COVID, and all the other experiences that came with it.
These past few months have truly pushed me to a breaking point. I didn’t recognize myself. I was laying in bed at all times of the day. I was constantly crying. I felt like I was losing every single part of myself. I don’t know what rock bottom feels like but that sure as hell felt real close.
It’s a very strange world when you don’t recognize yourself. In all aspects of my life, I felt like I was failing. Relationships, career, friends, my own mental health. Everything was utter shit. One day when I was in bed and couldn’t move, I called my brother and sister. I couldn’t speak. My voice caught, and everything boiled up and I started sobbing. I wasn’t happy. Something needed to change. My job felt impossible (I work within the social services sector as a housing navigator, and the number of clients we are getting from the shelters has tripled).
I am so thankful to have my job, but I was reaching a point where I didn’t know how to separate my work from my personal life, as I spend most of the day hearing stories about people who live on the streets. A relationship I was in was ending, and I reached my lowest of lows, feeling like I had lost my favorite person in the world. My sense of direction in all aspects of my life had faded.
I was at a standstill.
I have a thing about endings and letting go. I can’t seem to get myself to do it, whether that be letting go of people, places, things, or even letting go of the version of myself that I was a year ago or a few months ago. The people and places and things that are so important to me… I want them to stay, but some things in life are never meant to stay.
You aren’t supposed to hold onto people that don’t hold onto you.
Endings, in all aspects, are usually pretty fucking sad. Sometimes you are forced into them, sometimes you choose them, sometimes you know they are coming, but aren’t prepared for how it feels.
Everything seems structured, so simple, on the outside looking in. We all go through similar experiences throughout our lives. That is something beautiful about being human: How alike we all are without knowing the specifics of why we are the way we are.
Saudade: Unique to Portuguese, impossible to define in English... It’s the remnant of gratitude and bliss that something happened, but the simultaneous devastation that it has gone and will never happen again. It marries the feelings of happy wistfulness and poignant melancholy, anticipation, and hopelessness. It’s universally understood by a cross-ocean culture with a constant feeling of absence, a yearning for the return of something now gone.
-Mari Andrew
How do you feel gratitude towards memories and people and places when you never wanted to leave them in the first place? Maybe gratitude will never come, but forgiveness is something you can choose for yourself. The people that matter will stay. Saudade is a reminder that life can move forward and growth can still happen when you are sad. I have always pictured growth as a mindset instead of an experience. I have pushed myself to grow and become a better person without stepping back to give myself time to heal. If I have learned one thing in these past few months, it is this:
Give yourself the grace to grieve.
The sense of hopelessness I felt has faded, but everything comes in waves. When you lose someone who was your world, what do you do? Broken hearts make up so much of who we are as humans and how we become better versions of ourselves. I am a sucker for romcoms. Growing up, I always believed that all two people ever needed was love and fate and fairy dust. Much to the dismay of my five-year-old heart, love is not enough. And that’s okay. That is how we grow and understand who we are and what we need in this life. I still wake up some mornings and have this brief period where I forget my breakup ever happened. Those little seconds, that space between dreams and reality, is crushing.
There is an empty feeling when you leave a place for the last time. I have gotten into the habit of taking photos of important places and people in my life when I know, “This is it. This is the last time I will step foot in this place.” I did it when I left my college house in San Diego for the last time. I did it when I was traveling throughout Thailand and New Zealand. I did it when I moved to Chicago and left my childhood bedroom. When I look back at the pictures, it reminds me of who I was in that little space. Memories always flood back. I remember the sadness and happiness and everything in between that came with those photos. They remind me how far I have come and how far I have yet to go.
The Light that Shines When Things End
I hope that in the future they invent a small golden light that follows you everywhere and when something is about to end, it shines brightly so you know it’s about to end. And if you’re never going to see someone again, it’ll shine brightly and both of you can be polite and say, ‘It was nice to have you in my life while I did, good luck with everything that happens after now.
And maybe if you’re never going to eat at the same restaurant again, it’ll shine and you can order everything off the menu you’ve never tried. Maybe, if someone’s about to buy your car, the light will shine and you can take it for one last spin.
Maybe, if you’re with a group of friends who’ll never be together again, all your lights will shine at the same time and you’ll know, and then you can hold each other and whisper, ‘This was so good. Oh my God, this was so good.’
-Iain Thomas
I think endings have bothered me throughout my life because holding on is so much easier than letting go. I have relied on other people and places and things to give my own life meaning. I’m realizing that I never gave myself a chance to do exactly what I wanted because I based my choices on other people. That little poem from Iain Thomas resonated with me because it reminds me of all the things and people we have to let go of in life, even when we aren’t ready to. To be human is to let go.
Things I Have Learned from Letting Go
Put as much energy into working on yourself as you do on others.
Life is too damn short to be with people who don’t support your goals.
Always say yes to a chocolate chip cookie.
Tell the ones you love how much you love them every single day.
Do not take your health for granted. Take care of your body.
Stay grounded, remember your roots.
Do not let people take advantage of your kindness.
Nobody has a responsibility to make you happy. You create your own happiness.
Stop making excuses for yourself and others.
Family over everything.
Colleen Edwards is an American writer working within the homeless services system. She is currently based in Chicago and loves burritos.
