Endings

I just heard some news recently. Something has now ended. Officially.

I mean, it's been over for a long time, but it's the real deal now. Yup. No going back. Finito. Sayanara. The end. Ends are hard. I'm not good with ends. I like middles and beginnings. I'm a middle and beginning type of girl. Endings? ...not so much.

I found this quote recently and like it:

“And there are never really endings, happy or otherwise. Things keep going on, they overlap and blur, your story is part of your sister's story is part of many other stories, and there is no telling where any of them may lead.”      ― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

A good improv scene starts in the middle. A good book does the same. Something is already happening. The stakes are high. We are merely thrown into that world---simply or suddenly. And then there's the beginning. Never underestimate a good beginning! It sets the stage. It opens the door. It lures you in.

But endings? Don't like 'em. It's probably why I sort of live in 4 places right now. I don't like things to end. I like doors and possibilities to stay open (sometimes to my detriment.) But things do end, closing the door and any possibility of a new start. And ironically, the only thing left to do is start again. Fresh. Braver, stronger, smarter and older.

Where are you hanging on to things that are long over? Is it time to start a new scene?

Just say it

So here's a little something something.

Lately, I've been hanging on to thoughts that aren't necessarily the truth. I've been lingering in drama and difficulty. I haven't been declaring and living into what could be and maybe what already is. Aaaand it's been weighing me down.

So today, I was walking down the street from missing my yoga class for being two minutes late (2 minutes!! ---come on studio!) and so instead having just had a lovely, heart opening phone conversation with my dear friend Patrick, when I had an epiphany: DECLARE IT, and it will be! Say what you want to be.

In improv scenes, you declare your truth and the scene follows. You will live into what you say out loud. I know this. I teach this. I think I just forgot it or didn't recognize it missing in my own life. (Darned improv philosophy always sneaking up on me!) So I said it: out loud, right there on Carmen Avenue with the cold lakefront wind blowing straight onto my face. I declared a truth, the truth I wanted, the truth that very easily could be the actual truth. (Who's to say it's not!?) And then I smiled. I felt better. Those things are now true. I said them and now I will live them. It's that easy. I feel lighter.

Say what you need to say today. Declare your truth. Then your life and the universe will support it. For realz.

pushing pause.

The weather has been crazy in the Midwest. Super cold and then mild and then super cold again. Difficult to figure out how to dress every day! Difficult to weather the change.

My 95 year old grandpa just died. We were very close. We talked 2 or 3 times a week. I visited him from across country 4 or 5 times a year. We were very close. I miss him. It is a difficult change to weather.

Life, of course, like the weather, always changes. Nothing stays the same. Ever. No matter how hard we cling to the current, it is beyond our grasp, and becomes the past. It flies away in the winter wind.

Improv teaches us to let go of the past, to live in this moment, to say yes to what is given us here and now—bitter winds or bitter loss, staggering failure or triumphant success. But sometimes I want to linger a bit, slow down time, live in the past, remember what was. This is one of those moments. I am not ready for this change quite yet. I will be soon, but not quite yet. So I sit. And as the wind howls outside, I wait for the sun to shine once again, for the weather to change, to weather this change.