Letting Go Is Hard

 Earlier today I finished watching the Disney series "Amphibia". It is a great show, and I highly encourage you to check it out if you haven't done so already. I found the conclusion to be quite satisfying, but now I find myself at a loss. What next? 

I will admit it, I binge-watch. More and more people do likewise, with streaming services becoming increasingly common. It can be a little jarring, honestly. I'm old enough to remember having to wait (impatiently) for tomorrow to arrive and bring with it the next episode of whatever series I was following (not to mention the endless frustration/confusion born of missing an episode). I actually caught myself up on one such series, a year or so ago. The storyline progressed much faster than I remember it going, likely a result of being able to watch multiple episodes in one go. And in the end, it ended.

Endings are hard to deal with. I know that when I get really into a show or a book, when I get close to the end I slow down. I want to know HOW it ends, but I don't want it TO end. With the thing ending, so too ends my enjoyment of the thing. And when it IS over, I find myself drifting. I know that there will be other shows to watch, other books to read, but I don't want to start them, not yet. I want to ride out the emotional high for as long as I can, until that too ends.

Endings are hard to deal with. My grandfather died of leukemia in late 2020, and it wasn't until early 2021 that I watched the video of his funeral service. I made excuses and put it off. Nobody brought it up, and I kept telling myself I would watch it when I was ready. Deep down, I was scared. Watching that video would mean acknowledging that he was really and truly gone. I didn't want to do that, but I did it anyway, because I had to. 

Dying is as much a part of life as being born. We are born, we make progress, and then we die so that the next generation can take over. My ceiling will be the next generation's floor. That is the logical view of all this. The emotional view is mostly frustration and depression, with some incomprehension scattered throughout. I don't know how to deal with this, and it is making me sad - both the thing itself and my uncertainty on dealing with it.

In the end, everything ends. Even this blog post. I'd like to close things out by quoting the band Semisonic, 'every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end'.