WRITING PROMPT #5

Beginnings, Middles, and Ends

Beginnings are a funny thing. They're awkward and mysterious and exciting and uncertain and hopeful and you don't know quite what will happen. You dream on things, you picture every glamorous way your mind can conjure up that the situation (or the relationship, for that matter) may go. Many of those dreams are unrealistic, although they feel very real and very accomplish-able at the time. I love the beginnings when everything is magical and sparkling; unsullied by the ravages of time, like a new nickel. It seems as though you have found the answer to what it is that you're looking for -- companionship for life, a home, a family, a job, financial security... Oh, but how things change with time...

But then you hit that middle ground. Sometimes it's a gradual shift, sometimes it all hits at once. You hit that plateau of middle ground. It feels comfortable like a warm, fuzzy sweater. You generally know how things are going to work by now. Sometimes you still have some dreams left, but for the most part, the illusion is shattered. The glitter begins to fade, the shine begins to tarnish... You've fallen into a rut of sameness with your lover. Your home has grown dusty, dirty, and cluttered. The kids grow up. Your job is soul-crushingly boring. The financial security you dreamt of in your youth didn't pan out. But the world goes round and round.

Then of course, the inevitable comes along that we all fear and dread: the endings. You fall out of love. You lose the house to foreclosure or it falls into dilapidation. Promises are broken, as is trust. The kids move away and move on with their lives. Friendships disintegrate. You lose your job, or go into retirement. And of course, the ultimate ending of all that nobody escapes: death.

The human experience is unique to all who live it. No two paths run completely parallel, nor will anyone walk your path with you from the moment you're born until you die except for you yourself. Nothing is permanent. No problem lasts forever... but likewise, nothing is forever, either, and we're only kidding ourselves when we try to believe otherwise.

I realize I'm very young to be so jaded about the whole world as I am, but it's something I've both witnessed and experienced time and time again. One thing I have always lacked in my life -- and so desperately envied others for -- is permanency. Of anything. All the people who've had lifelong friends from the time they were kids, the people who met The One and were lucky enough to get to spend their whole lives together; the ones who got to live in the same place their whole life; the ones who got to keep the same job from the time they started working til they retired; the ones who don't have to wonder and worry where their next paycheck is coming from -- or if there'll be one.  I know there's got to be people out there who've been blessed with being so lucky as to have such stability in their lives as this, but I unfortunately wasn't one of them. Fight and try as I might for anything even remotely resembling what I assume to be normalcy, and grasping for stability at the same time, it's never happened in my whole life -- the rug ALWAYS gets pulled out from under me. As they say, when man plans, God laughs. And it's true. (If you're of the non-religious persuasion, then okay, fate laughs.) So in trying to let things unfold as they will and in attempting to not be quite so much much of a self-described control freak, it's come to my attention that perhaps, maybe it's not just unlucky folks such as myself who seem to be doomed to lives where nothing's permanent... perhaps it truly is one of those crazy things that nobody ever wants to admit to, but everybody has to go through? Maybe? Just a thought. If so, on one hand, it doesn't give me much hope that I'll ever find the stability I so desperately crave and need in my life. On the other... If that's the case, then it's a little bit of an empowering feeling that maybe someday there will be something in my life that's rock steady that I can cling and anchor myself to in this crazy sea we call life. It certainly would be nice to be able to start something for once without having to worry about when it will end.