Endings and Beginnings

Here I am on a Saturday morning, "high" if I can use that word on various meds for my sinuses. Sinus discomfort seems to be a theme of my existance the last week or so. I'm pretending that it's the weather that's bringing this all on. But really, I have to confess that deep down I know it's aggriavted by stress. So please, on account of the meds, ignore any random, digressive ramblings, as well as icky syntax and poor spelling. It's not like I'm the best speller under any circumstances.

I've been thinking about beginnings and endings of things in this important, what-does-it-all mean, kind of way. And as I finished reading Julie Powell's Julie and Julia, a real hoot that does get inspiring in a sick, neurotic way, I was impressed by this observation that Powell makes: "The thing I keep learning about endings is that they aren't a long time coming, and they don't sneak up on you either, because endings just don't happen" (301--don't want to be sued for plariarism). And I kept thinking and thinking about what that means, and I'm reminded of the Semisonic song with the line "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." And I've realized that all the endings--break-ups, leaving old jobs, discarding old clothes, finishing a book that one wished never had to end, all the endings, big and small--they are really just opportunities. They open the possibilities that the beginnings, the projects, the relationships had made non-possibilities for a while. What I mean is this, when one is dating someone, let's say, that dating has the very real effect of making dating someone else a non-possibility. But then the break up returns all those possiblities. An acquaintance, a friend of a friend, just finished writing a novel, apparently. And I respect that. It must have taken a lot of dedication. But it seems to me that committing to writing that one novel meant that she didn't have the time or energy for the thousand other novels in her head or for whatever else. But finishing it, sending it off, is and ending and must, I assume, involve a sense of loss, a kind of mourning really. But now all those other possibilities are open to her again.

So I know that using pop-culture references to make my point maybe isn't so convincing. I mean, hey, is Semisonic really an autiority on the business of living? Maybe, probably not. (I guess this speaks to my abiding fascinating with pop culture.) But it's true, right?

The endings, the losses, they hurt, but don't they allow for a rebirth of some sort? Isn't that the lesson of the Phoenix?