The end came swaying with the winds of early November, just before the rains. It arrived capriciously, that I feared I had seen it loitering by the door, waiting to be invited in and crawl over my shoulder. It whispered so gently that something was wrong, its sound a soft melancholy I could almost nudge away.
It sat by the shutters looking out patiently. I could pretend to be oblivious to its presence, but I could not postpone the timing of what was to come. It stood there like a ghost, every morning as I opened the shutters, every night as I crawled beneath the covers. I had felt it, each time, like dark flashes that I dismissed to come from the nights without sleep. It hovered over me in my dreams as I woke up drenched in sweat, dreaming of a different life.
There was a part of me that fought to admit it to myself—that this was the end, that there would be no new beginnings this time. But there was another part of me, the stubborn part, that couldn’t just let go, that couldn’t accept what was fated.
Coffee had started to taste strange on my tongue, almost metallic, as though I were bleeding from the inside out. My tears had begun to feel dry, even though the poignancy was still painfully present. It lingered in harrowing fragments—the sadness of a life lost, the acceptance that I had come so far, yet gone the wrong way. The illusions had shattered in the palm of my hands, their pieces scattered away by an imaginary breeze.
The end...
It had come to share with me my favorite tea, to listen to my old favorite songs, its hands over my shoulder as it whispered that it wasn’t the most terrible thing—that we could no longer waste time.
I could not look it in the eye; I was too timid, too scared. For so long, I had soldiered on, learned how to patch things up when they went wrong, how to smile when things got rough, how to pick myself up and carry on from where I left off. For so long, I had avoided it.
It should have come sooner, when I wasn’t so far gone, when I wasn’t so lost. I danced with it, hoping it would disappear, fade into the color of the paint on the walls, the place I called home. But it was determined, even more willed than I ever was.
I looked down at the path that wasn’t my own, tears clouding my vision as I wondered who would carry me to the other side, to start again, to begin from nothing. It was painful, realizing I couldn’t mold this road to be my own, that I couldn’t bend this path to be destined for me. That’s the thing about destiny, isn’t it? It can’t be twisted or turned. It stays the same. What is written, what is meant to be, will be.
It simply wasn’t meant to be...
Endings can be so tender, so raw. All the balance I thought I had gained over the years, yet my knees buckled in the middle of the lone road because of the weight behind my back. It wasn’t pushing me anymore...the end, it just stood there, watching me in my despair as I grew weaker and weaker.
It just stood there, no pestering, no sound, because whatever is meant to be, will be... and it wasn’t meant to be.
I dared look it in the eye when I realized I could no longer move, could no longer ignore its presence. I stared into its gaze, and it promised me that it would be gentle... that even endings can be beautiful, that even endings can be bravery, and that it is, in fact, an awakening.
That’s how I came to the end... the closing of one chapter, the final beginning of starting over, but this time on a path I hoped was truly my own. It was scary... but it was necessary...
Your writing is filled with moments,