Beginning of the End

Papers, books, TV shows, and movies all have specific beginning and ending points. Life is not quite so well defined. The end of my term in seminary is nearing its end, but the endings are already beginning. On Friday, I went to the last Student Council meeting under the current administration. I watched my classmates hand over their posts of leadership and representation to the newly-elected folks. I represented my fellow third-years for the last time. And somewhere in my guts, I felt the familiar farewell sensation beginning to build. Suddenly, I have the urge to take my camera with me wherever I go, just in case I need to capture the last time that *insert significant event here* happens. The last girls' breakfast, the last Thursday night out, the last church choir practice, the last lunch in the student commons... I don't know when these events will occur, and I'm afraid that one day I'll realize that the last one is already over and I somehow didn't capture the memory well enough.

Some of the farewells are exciting. For instance, on Sunday afternoon, I sent in my thesis for grading. It was an exciting moment, a farewell to a large project and bit of stress. But some of the farewells are so frightening, so sad, that I'm dreading them already, even though they are at least a month away. I don't even want to think about the last time I'll drop by friends' apartments, the last time we all eat together or play games. And, strange as this may seem, I don't want to go to my last class ever. It's utterly bizarre to imagine the day after I finish my last class; I can't fathom a moment when I'm not anticipating another class, another semester. I've been in school for twenty years...I'm not going to know what to do when I no longer have to worry about classes and papers.

I'm trying to mentally prepare for the endings without becoming so focused on the finality of them that I no longer just enjoy them for the moments that they are. I'm trying to look forward to the future, but that's a bit difficult when I still don't know what that future will look like. (Waiting for an appointment is rough that way.) This, perhaps, is why we need rituals so much. We need the demarcation to distinguish between the past and the future. We need a time of communal recognition to say, "That was then, this is now." But how do you ritualize parting when the departures aren't synchronized? I feel a bit like an iceberg, like bits and pieces of my life as I know it are breaking off and floating away. I suppose that's the danger of long, lingering goodbyes.

But life really happens in the liminal spaces. It's in the in-between moments that we learn to cherish one another, to recognize the beauty and value in things we used to think were ordinary. We learn to live the moments-not-taken-for-granted. Too bad it's all tinged with goodbye.