Beginnings and Endings

Image by aspasy from Pixabay

Twenty twenty-five was a year of new beginnings, and of endings.

It was the year I turned fifty. The year my daughter graduated from college. It was the year my son graduated from high school and moved away for college. It was the year I stopped writing, then started again. It was the year my mother died.

There are months I barely remember, that already seem a world away. I drifted through them like a ghost. Other months I raced through, checking days off on the calendar, desperate to put them behind me.

There were months that started to feel normal, until I realized I didn’t know what normal was anymore.

And through it all, there was a line I wrote in the first fragile attempt to write about the unimaginable: The first real loss changes everything.

Maybe in 2026 I will follow that line to its end. Maybe I’ll just leave it as is.