Every Ending is a New Beginning
“Sometimes grief and joy will overlap. You’re allowed to feel many things at once.” -Morgan Harper Nichols
Endings are hard and sad. They leave a void of emptiness, a fear of the future, and a desperate questioning of what will fill the hole of all that you’ve known.
Maybe you’re moving towns to somewhere totally new or graduating and embarking on the terrifying world of adulthood, or maybe you are struggling to recover from a broken relationship that you tried so desperately to heal.
Maybe it was an unexpected ending, an unforeseen heartbreak, a sudden loss you never could’ve prepared yourself for.
Or maybe you knew it was coming. You’ve seen it coming for miles—but you didn’t want to think about it, because thinking about it would admit it’s real and usher in the pain.
Maybe you don’t know how you will go on. Maybe you are yearning for things to just be how they used to be, but you know they never will be—and that they never should be.
You know it’s time. You know it’s time to give up your room in your parents’ house. You know it’s time to let go of the relationship that used to be good but has been pulling you down for as long as you can see. You know it’s time to move out of your small college apartment and venture on to something greater.
To fly, you have to step off the cliff. You have to let go of the plane. And that’s utterly terrifying. But you know the view will be incredible and the feeling of the freedom beneath your wings will be worth it all.
Maybe, through the tears, there’s a glimmer of hope. Somehow, you just know there is so much more ahead. But it’s scary because you don’t know what it is. You can’t see it.
The past is a list of facts and a reel of memories. You can see it. You can remember it. You know it. You can hold it in your hand.
The future is a haze of vague hope.
It’s hard to let go of something in your hand and trust that it will not be left empty for long.
But it’s also so brave. So very brave. It’s so brave to realize that an ending needs to happen. It’s courageous to let go when it’s time to move on. It’s courageous to leave the known behind and step forward into an unknown that could be so much better.
Dare to hope. Dare to be excited for new beginnings. Because that’s what every ending is—a new beginning. A chance for something more.
Like yellow daffodils beginning their glorious bloom in droves along the side of the highway or the excitement of fragile, new life breaking from an egg under its mother’s care, new beginnings are full of gentle expectation for a bright, lovely life.
So many what if’s come with endings. But what if your ending makes room for a glorious new beginning that is better and more joyful than you ever thought? What if there are so many rich, new friendships, so many fresh things to learn and see that you never would have seen and experienced if you had stayed in the past?
It’s ok to mourn and rejoice at the same time. It’s ok to be sad over the ending and excited about the beginning. Feel it all.
But all I ask is that you dare to hope with me. And that you leave the past in the past and make room in your heart and mind for so many more wonderful things to come.
Sincerely, Hannah
Photography: Hannah B.