beginnings

I have always been able to accept endings- the bottom of a really good cup of coffee, the end of a marvelous book, the closing of my favorite store downtown, the piece of paper that ended a 31-year marriage to the person with whom I expected to grow old. There were always logical and acceptable reasons for those endings.

Now I realize that beginnings are what I fear most. When I was small, I would be literally sick for the last week of summer vacation, afraid of what the new year at school would bring. I couldn’t be hopeful for a good experience- I always expected the worst.

My life has been a good one, don’t get me wrong, but my memories of all the changing moments in my life have always been blurred by the underlying sense of doom that I felt at my graduation, my wedding, even the birth of my two wonderful children.

Now I move on, with my lifelong fantasy of a business is coming to fruition. I have a future ahead, one of making my own rules, and forcing myself to either stick to them or change them.

It will be frightening at first, but like all beginnings in my life, I know I will follow my life’s path and be just fine. Just a beginning of more beginnings, ones which I will learn to anticipate with joy and hopefulness.