It Is Finished – 1 Year Later

One year ago today my divorce was final. I remember writing a post that day to somehow mark its significance. I called it It is Finished. I went back and read it just a few minutes ago…It was worth rereading (even if I do say so myself).

For my own sake, I’m posting the whole thing again in the paragraphs that follow; recognizing that though 365 days have passed, I still need to be reminded of my past – and my ever-heightening desire for the future. As I look back I have no regrets; no burdensome angst. Rather, I am even more aware of what I need and want than I could have possibly been on August 21, 2007. Today, one year later, I want and need more…because I am more.

It is Finished.

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.
(Lazarus Long)

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.
(T.S. Eliot)

It is Finished. Yesterday I spoke these words. I marked the end of something: something meaningful, something beautiful, something painful, something rich, something deeply significant. All endings bring a sense of grief. There is a finality that is weighty and cannot be escaped. But endings also signify new beginnings. That reality feels weightless; one that is unbounded, unrestrained, unknown, and unfettered.

You’re searching…for things that don’t exist; I mean beginnings. Ends and beginnings – there are no such things. There are only middles.
(Robert Frost)

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.
(Gilda Radner)

My life – yesterday and today – feels like a book. Yesterday I ended one chapter, even somewhat tragically. Today, anticipating what is yet to come, I turn the page and find the next one blank. A clean slate. White as snow. Anxious and excited for the pen to hit the page and create a new text, new plots, new characters, new experiences. What will this story yet tell?

The secret to a rich life is to have more beginnings than endings.
(David Weinbaum)

There is a woman at the beginning of all great things.
(Alphonse de Lamartine)

Every day is a fresh beginning, Every morn is the world made new.
(Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

It is Beginning.

1 Year Later:
I’ll pour myself some champagne a bit later and toast – not so much in celebration, but to mark this day – and this day last year. The endings have not ended; nor the beginnings. More of both are on the way. In fact, “more” seems like a good, representative word for this past year. Indeed, I know more. I want more. I am more. Cheers.

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