Endings

Rationally, we all know that beginnings and endings are part of everything. Nothing lasts forever, and something can't come from nothing. Like the 4H kid who knows that if her steer wins Grand Champion at the state fair, it's going to market, I sit here and ponder about a life that requires us to invest everything - and when we succeed, we suddenly realize we just won ourselves a whole lot of heartache!

I know, the Teenager isn't dead (unlike that Grand Champion steer). He's always my "kid," I've already texted him a few times, and I'm sure we will see each other relatively often. Instead, I'm mourning the end of a wonderful era in my life. Parenting the teenager on a daily basis for the past five years was so very hard, and yet so very wonderful. To look back and see the darkest moments of my life, when I was hopeless and overwhelmed and felt wholly unable to do the job; contrasted with the joy of laughing with the teenager, encouraging him and watching him grow into a good man - well, it makes you cry.

To put it another way, it's how you feel after the last curtain call on the final night of a show. Or after finishing the last game of the season. When you invest your heart in the performance, you can't help but wish it could keep going just a little longer. Even when you know you couldn't have done it any better, you still cry because it's over. You can't relive it, and yet you desperately wish you could.

These tears are good. If I'm lucky, I will cry like this throughout my life. How horrible to spend my entire life thinking "Thank goodness that period of my life is over and done with!" But it's scary too; tears like this require self-sacrifice, perseverance and determined love. I didn't cry much when I graduated high school, because I was self-centered and life was easy. Same for college - I didn't invest a whole lot of myself into anything worth many tears when it ended.

Today marks my first really painful ending. I am consoled that my heartache is the result of a game well-played, of a part well-done, of a steer well-fed. I am eager to see what God has in store for the next era of my life. And I'm excited to see what God has in store for the teenager.

But right now, I'm just sad.