On endings and new beginnings

I have been cleaning in my house today. We are switching cable/internet/phone companies and I have too many boxes of papers in the affected rooms. (There may or may not have been a crazy person announcing that the place looks great- we should change cable companies every month! That crazy person would not have been me this time, if it actually happened.)  So I came upon a scrapbook my friends up in the Albany area made me when we moved down to Long Island almost 20 years ago. Of course I had to stop all of my work and read through it. It saddened me because each of the families represented by a note or recipe or letter used to occupy such an important place in my life. I am only occasionally in contact with one of the five or six families who wrote such amazing things to send us off. And I had added pictures from the home group I was I after that. And I am not in touch, except through Facebook, with any of them. It's heartbreaking to me. I am honored that my friends didn't raise a fuss and tell me not to go. They all were encouraging to both my husband and myself.

 I have recently had a close friend move away. Although I was saddened by the loss I would incur from them leaving, I knew it was a final decision and I encouraged them with my whole heart. And you know what? My friend leaving allowed me to feel and process through a lot of issues I had been avoiding dealing with for years. They haven't been gone a full year yet- but I feel if they showed up today it would be obvious by my actions and my attitudes that I have grown immeasurably in their absence. It is obvious to me that much of that growth was actually caused by their absence. Sometimes what looks like an ending is actually a new beginning. You do know that every beginning comes from an ending, right?

So today I was musing about endings and beginnings. My eldest child takes the SAT's this weekend- he will graduate from High School in June. It is a bittersweet time. He has done amazingly well this year in school- grown so much  in his 4 years at the High School- but the future is a big question mark. We have no idea what he will be doing in the future. 

Anyway- it is an ending and a beginning all over again. 

So- are you embracing a new beginning or are you mourning the ending? The choice is yours- there isn't a wrong answer. I would like to encourage you to jump right in and embrace your life- because the ending doesn't mean time stops.