When it Ends

It seemed life was a humdrum, completely copacetic until it isn't.  Every good thing must come to an end.  Hopes and dreams that are shelved, abandoned, forgotten like some old memory tucked in the leaf pages of time suddenly become an urgent preoccupation. To move on to something new is not without its pain of transition.

As I look back, the memories bring a twinge of sadness pulling me into some unexpressed discomfort wrinkled by abrupt change.  I was in love with the mission of service whether it be in the most personal interaction with others to the sterile confines of endless reports; mundane tasks that buried my sensibilities lulling me into a sense of strange complacency.

I reached the end of another milestone and the beginning of a new chapter in my life.  One filled with unnamed angst, uncertainty, challenge, and questionable bravery.  But that is the demand of life - to continually flow through change; at once turbulent and at other times at ease.  It is inescapable, a rational consequence of evolution because in this life everything changes.

What if it ends?  Does that mean my life is over or is it just a redefinition of the purpose by which I was made to fulfill?  Surely, the good fight has not ended.  That task of becoming the person I was meant and fashioned to be has not ceased.  The seeking for new meaning and common connection that summons inner strength to rebuild hopes and dreams did not stop.  The struggle never ends until the last breath of life.

Life goes on without any grand push from me.  It does not pave its way straight so that I may live in comfort.  It does not acquiesce to my ambitious designs.  Life is simply what I make of it.  Whether I live in the most pitiable of circumstance or conquer my fears to recreate it is the pillar of strength or the empty moorings of a vanquished spirit.