So long, farewell,
Au’voir, auf Wiedersehen.
I’d like to stay, these days glisten like Champagne
-The von Trapp Family, with help from Me
I am many things, Reader, but songwriter I am not. Do forgive me for my violation of Messrs. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s legendary lyrics, and though I have certainly muddied the task, pray attempt to glean from them the message I have poorly communicated – that these days of late are beautiful and at their untimely end.
To wish unhappiness upon you, darling Reader, would be my end, for I am too much in your debt and far too respecting of your person to presume to solicit your downfall from a higher power. However, I admit I am deeply human in my desire to be joined by a community of others who feel likewise in moments of tribulation, and so I admit I would find some comfort in the knowledge that I am not alone in my feelings of melancholy these past few weeks.
I was foolish enough to convince myself, Reader, that these notions of uneasiness could be attributed to the simple fact that this time of year has not always been a happy one for me, and that I was experiencing an involuntary reaction to a familiar change in seasons that has historically been fraught with tension. What a lazy response did I have! No evasion of the journey on which I have been set could have lasted long, and my feeble attempts to package away unsettling sentiments gave way to a more uncomfortable truth before I could convince myself of my own peace.
Reader, I loathe endings, and today, my life is full of them. Mrs. Maria von Trapp said that, “When God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window” – and while she may very well be speaking the truth, I would really much prefer God keep those currently open doors unfastened and vulnerable to the joys that wait beyond their thresholds. After all, and forgive me for making an assumption on your behalf, I would deign to believe we would all favour a door to a window as a means of entering a new environment. I have climbed through windows in the past, but never as gracefully as when I have been allowed to walk on my own two feet.
Endings may be meant to signify the beginning of something new, but I am for the first time in a very long time content – nay, exuberantly joyful – in my situation. And here I am, weeks away from its end. I have made friends in my roommates who I love deeply and cherish more than life, and I will soon wave to them good-bye – though I adore the woman with whom I am to live soon, I am saddened at the end of this chapter. I must salute my sister as she for the first time lives more than thirty minutes away from me, moving to a new city for a new job and an adventure that includes myself in a role to which I am not accustomed. My dearest friend, too, will have an exciting experience next year, first abroad and then in Los Angeles, and for her I am happy, but for myself I am saddened that I will not see her for months on end. I am nervous at the thought of these coming summer days, lacking the structure of school to organize my time and keep my friends in town – for many have left for the summer to go home, or endeavor upon crusades elsewhere. And when these sunny weeks end, I will prepare for my final year of college, which, after enjoying my experience in higher education so late in its progression, horrifies me in its rapid conclusion. And still the list goes on – there is no end to the many endings I feel compounding upon me today.
I know not how to grapple with these feelings but to move through them with time. I have never been the person who can exist easily in multiple truths – which is not to say I do not seek the grey area between worlds of black and white, but rather that when there is no grey to be found, I struggle to align the two opposites. Though I have a mountain of evidence from my own experiences to argue the contrary, in my mind, endings are not beginnings – they are a hard stop to a reality that can not be recaptured. Jay Gatsby died from believing the past could be reanimated, leaving me with the question of how to live in the present, conscious of the future I desire, and informed by the past.
To be frank, I am not a lazy woman, but I do not want to take the path of most resistance today. No, Reader, today I will voice a desire which my artistic heart rarely claims as its own – that I prefer not to grow in the face of new experiences and struggles, but to stay in this happy, beautiful era where my friends and family and I are a wonderful community of joyous days, late night laughter, and early morning smiles. Whatever greater life waits through that window, I do not care to seek it.
It is sad, to watch endings approach and be without the power to stall their arrival. It is heavy, to wake each day knowing the rise of the sun marks yesterday gone, and whatever wonder there is to be discovered today will only be found in a circumstance soon lost to memory. I am not fond of these endings.
I know, Reader, the best combatant against this unhappiness is presence in the moment, but you will forgive me, I hope, if I take a brief respite from self-betterment to mourn. I promise, on my honour, I will return to my efforts of engaging with the greater journey and finding life in every instant in due course.
I am not certain of my purpose in writing this piece today, other than to share my current situation in life. It does feel a bit narcissistic to talk largely of myself and offer few reflections on the world at large. I hope you will indulge me as I ask your forgiveness for a third time today, Reader. I do appreciate you so.
Reader, I hope your current path is diverted by a painless ending if you are experiencing difficulties, and that your joy is sustained for as long as is best for you if you are not. I am optimistic that when we meet again, I will have a kinder outlook, and perhaps will be willing to acknowledge the merits of new exploits rather than their faults.
All my well-wishes go with you.
Love,
Lettie Anne