The End (Tara Taylor Quinn)

Hmmm. The End. Another one of those phrases that pretty much scares the hell out of you. The End. So daunting. The end of life? The end of a relationship? The end of vacation? Once again, I remember a song - I might have mentioned I come from a musical family - I forget who sings it but it was one of the old crooners like Frank Sinatra or Andy Williams. Or maybe they all sang it. "And now, the end is near, and as I face the final curtain... It's a great song about doing things 'My Way', but still, The End is clearly sad. In the song, it's the end of a life. But there's the end of the road. The end of the show. The end of the toilet paper. Or...

THE END of this book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!!!! I'm finally coming up out of the darkness. Or at least not having to live in it exclusively. Yesterday afternoon at 5:13, The End appeared on my computer screen. This was not daunting. This was not sad. This was Good News!!!

I guess, to a reader, The End of a book isn't so great, either, assuming it's a good book. But to a writer - what glory! What joy! What relief!! Kind of like the end of school. Freedom! What am I going to do first?

Yeah, kind of like that. The end of school. A time to celebrate. To bring in the idyllic days of summer. Isn't it great?

And...(because there always is one) kind of bittersweet, too. The last day of school always brought to mind that I wouldn't be spending my days with my friends. As a matter of fact, there were friends that I wouldn't see all summer. Friends that I had a class with that I might lose touch with forever if we never had another class together.

The book's kind of like that, too. I'm jumping up and down, celebrating the end. I'm rejoicing. And I feel this little pull. This sense of sadness. I laid in bed last night and couldn't sleep. I didn't want the day to end, the goodbye to be complete. I've spent all day everyday with a group of people who I am now sending off on their own. We'll never have those days together again. I'll still be sitting here in this same place, with the same computer. But they're gone. I'm going to miss them. I'm going to miss thinking about them, wondering about them. I'm going to miss their voices in my head.

Have you ever had someone come stay with you? You look forward to the visit. You anticipate and can't wait and want them to come. And by the time they're leaving, you're ready for them to go. You have so much to do, so much that got put aside while they were there. You need to take your life back. And yet, when they pack up and drive away, the house is empty. Your heart is a bit emptier. They've been gone five minutes and you're kind of lost. You miss them. Yeah, the book's kind of like, too.

Or, here's a better one. You raise your kid. She's with you all day every day. (Mine was, literally.) She's in your head and in your heart and she consumes you. And then she's a teenager and pulling away. She's disagreeing with you. She starts to think she knows more than you do and you start to feel a tad bit old and stupid. It's time for her to go. To have her own life. You help her pick a college, an apartment, a car, a job - things to help her find their freedom. You anticipate your own freedom. You're going to travel, retire, buy that big toy you've always wanted, go back to school. And then the day comes when the child actually leaves. She packs up (or you do it for her) and everything is loaded and she's gone. And there you are, in the same place, only you're alone. Empty. That voice that was constantly talking in your head is silent. You miss her like crazy. That's like the end of the book, too.

And then you take the next step. Because you have to. You're alive. You breathe. You look around you. You move. One little step. Another little step. And pretty soon you find out the best thing about The End. It's the beginning that it leads to. For every The End, there is a new beginning. It's a given. A natural. You know the old saying about one door closes another opens? It's a force in life. Every ending creates space for a new beginning.

Sometimes I tend to see life as linear. You start at the beginning and go to The End. Period. The end. Done. But as I stumble my way through this journey of life, I find that nothing is linear. Everything goes in circles. (No wonder I'm dizzy so much of the time!) No matter where you start, you're going to come around. Beginnings and ends are attached. One leads to the other. Whether you start at the beginning or the end, you will naturally find your way to the other.

Which means, since I can't have a new child, I guess I'll start a new book. A Bed & Breakfast story. A story of a woman who's alone, she's never married, she runs a bed & breakfast that she inherited from an aunt. She has a dog. And a broken heart. And there's this man. An artist. He visits the bed & breakfast twice a year. Year after year. He has secrets. He's known her before...

Should I do it? Should I start this book? It's just going to lead to another The End. To bittersweet emptiness. These new people are going to pack up and leave me at some point. I'll be sad again. Alone.

And then there will be another new beginning. Because that's what life promises.

Right?