I’ve been thinking lately about the power we have over saying goodbye. Our exits. The end of chapters.
For a while, I struggled with the idea that a messy ending (to a relationship, to a good habit, to a job) invalidated all that came before. I gave all the power to the final word. Our brains look for stories in everything. We expect a beginning, the journey of the middle, and an end. Then we make meaning out of it.
But I think it’s closer to the truth that all the meaning is in that middle. Does the middle mean nothing if the ending is a trainwreck?
Even if the ending could be a good one though (or at least not a disaster) I’ve seen people (and me) self-sabotage it into something scarring. We have more power than we think in how we end chapters. We can do so with grace. Not without feeling, but without pity or anger or indecisiveness. We can end things with sadness and kindness in turn.
When my marriage ended it was painful for both of us, but, to our credit, we did our best to minimize the impact. All the arguments and hurt that led to the breakup immediately switched to a ceasefire once we made the decision. We didn’t argue over assets. We were fair. We were polite. Any lashing out we did was not at one another. We’re not friends now, but we are kind to one another.
Those were choices we both made in the ending. And for all I wish things could have gone differently during the relationship, we’ve done our best not to let it end uglier than it had to be.
In my work, I see this play out in how people leave the company. Those who take responsibility and do their best to the last day versus those who cash it in. I wish we could learn half as much as we do about people in hiring as we do during their exits.
The series finale of The Good Place aired last night. I made a rare streaming exception and pulled out my TV antenna to watch it live on NBC. It’s one of the best comedies I’ve seen — on the same shelf as Brooklyn 99 and Parks & Rec for me — about what happens after you die. I won’t spoil the ending, but it was done beautifully. Everything you’d want from a show you love coming to a close: emotion and meaning and great care for the world they’d created. It was a good goodbye.
(In contrast, think of How I Met Your Mother or Game of Thrones . . . does the trainwreck ending negate the rest?)
My point (I’m searching for it before my thoughts get too existential) is that as individuals we don’t always have a choice in the endings, but we have a choice in how we carry ourselves through it.
(But seriously, everyone should watch The Good Place now.)
With Love,
Natalie