A Reflection on Beginnings
“Time for you to go out; To the places you will be from” - Semisonic
My oldest daughter moved into her first apartment this week. This is a huge beginning for her and I’m so proud of her. For me, though, it is an ending: the ending of her childhood, which has been slowly waning for several years now. I’ve noticed that beginnings are like that; they are often accompanied by endings.
The theme of beginnings brought me back to the lyrics from the old Semisonic song, Closing Time, “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” Written in 1998 this song brings back vivid memories from my early young adulthood. What I didn’t know when I was younger is that, when Dan Wilson wrote the song, he wrote it as a metaphor for childbirth. When you listen to the song with the context of childbirth, the song becomes more poetic, sweeter, and even more meaningful.
It’s hard to separate beginnings and endings. Something as straightforward as childbirth is almost universally associated with beginnings. There is the beginning of a new life and new identities for the people who will be in the child's life (parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, all get new identities). Yet, we do a disservice to new parents if we don’t acknowledge that even a healthy childbirth also has notes of endings. The end of sleeping through the night for the primary caregiver(s). The end of routines and relationships as they were only hours before the birth. The end of quiet weekends for at least 18 years.
Beginnings and endings aren’t just tied together in experiences with children, the natural world can teach us everything we need to know about beginnings and endings. Just watch the tide move in and out; the beginning of high tide is the end of low tide. Or, notice the change of seasons; as summer ends, fall begins. Nature doesn’t fret or worry over these cycles - these beginnings and endings - they just are a part of the way of things. Nature teaches us through example that beginnings are not better than endings and vice versa. The two are inextricably intertwined.
As the Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron says, “things fall apart, and then they come together, and then they fall apart again.” In the context of beginnings and endings, one could say, “things begin, and then they end, and then they begin again.”
I wonder if there’s a beginning happening in your life that feels like an ending, or if there’s an ending that might actually be a new beginning. I’d love to hear your story of a beginning or ending.
Blessings,
Dayna
