As I work on my manuscript, From Winter to Spring, I am reminded of how often throughout our lifetime we are required to make an ending.
It isn’t just when death enters our sphere of existence, but when we leave one timeline behind and enter a new time zone.
Endings close a door to the past. It’s crossing the River Jordan into a new world.
When the children of Israel reached the banks of the roaring Jordan River after wandering forty years in the desert because they weren’t willing to cross that river the first time, they were once again faced with a choice.
Do I go back to the desert I am familiar with, or do I cross into a land that holds promise and a new way of life? This can be scary because we knew the desert we were in; we don’t know what lies ahead of us. And intuitively we know we are not going back.
Change requires making an ending that closes one chapter of our life so we can start a new one. Sometimes we initiate that ending. Its when we didn’t initiate it that we hold the door open as long as we can in case we want to go back to what was predictable. Sometimes we put a door stop in it as we cautiously move forward toward a new reality so we can go back if we want to. But there is no going back. An ending is just that – an ending.
Endings can create questions, uncertainty and anxiety. I know who I was – who am I now? I was comfortable in my old existence, will I be as comfortable now? I knew what to expect before this change; but I don’t know what to expect in the new reality I am stepping into.
As we shift our focus from the past to the future we have the opportunity to learn new things about ourselves – not just who we were but who we can become.
Spend some time alone reflecting and exploring during this transitonal time period between ending and new beginning. It is here where we make new discoveries about ourselves, explore new options and create new goals.
It is estimated that a major life transition can take anywhere from eighteen months to four years to complete. We often get impatient and want to quickly move forward. But if we do, we lose the opportunity to grieve our ending, discover new dimensions of ourselves and use them as the building blocks for any new beginning.
Marlene Anderson