Friday 23 May 2014

Re-writing The End


“Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened”
~ Dr Seuss
 













Endings are rarely easy. Especially when they are seemingly abrupt and unexpected. Especially when it's something you didn't really want to end.

I had this thought: I didn't even get a chance to find out what I didn't like. The time was too short, reality held at a distance behind the best masks on display. In some ways that is maybe the hardest part – that I didn't have a chance to find out what I didn't like.

I had been there before. And really, that is why this impending end hit the way it did. Because I had been there before. Left standing by myself in empty, silence. Wondering what happened? Wondering when it changed? Wondering where I am? Wondering who you are? Wondering why...? It had become one of my stories - like we all have stories. Stories of how the experiences of our lives play out. Patterns that seem to repeat over and over again...

...until something changes.

Perhaps it is the smallest detail. Perhaps it is the loudest scream.

It was a story I did not want to re-tell. Or a story I wanted to tell with a different end. And so I did. I re-wrote The End. I took control of my own experience. I asked for answers that I did not want to hear. I spoke words that used to catch in my throat. I let loose the loudest scream in order to change the smallest details. I sought closure because it's absence drove me to places I no longer want to visit. I empowered myself by re-writing The End of one of my stories.

Still... empowerment ebbs and flows in the empty silence that inevitably follows even when answers are given and words have been spoken. Closure helps, but disappointment and rejection leave their mark no matter how long or short. No matter how it ends. No matter who is the first – or last – to call it out loud. Because endings are rarely easy, even when they are slow and expected. Even when you have decided that it is the best thing to do in the moment.

The very fact that this ending held opportunity for a re-write is what I found I didn't like. There is no right way to do this: the advice rings in my ears. Perhaps there was another way. But I have been in the end of that story before and it was not enjoyable. This time wasn't so much either. But at least I have editorial credits in re-writing The End; in creating the possibility for a new story to begin.

1 comment:

Tully said...

Great writing, B! Wonderfully expressed. Dt.