Openings and Closings

I think in some ways we all seek closure in our life, be it in our jobs, school, or relationships. Not only can closure bring peace for things that have been struggles but they can also bring new hope. Where there is closure there was at one point a new beginning, those first moments of anticipation and hope. Closure itself brings new beginnings since where one thing ends invariably something else is usually just beginning. Fall for most students, like myself, brings new beginnings where spring brings the end of classes. This of course is in exact contradiction of nature where spring marks new beginnings and fall shows signs of closure. Closure can be as seemingly simple and private as finishing something that has been hanging over your head and that you need to do to be able to move on. Ceremonies are often made to mark these moments of closures, graduation in the United States being a key example. Funerals, in a different way, are also a way of bring closure to those who are still living. Weddings of friends and the first day of class are signs of openings that I have experienced in the last month.

Openings and Closings can be very public moments but also happen in small more private ways. This week was full of examples of just such openings and closings in my life and that of those around me. For one of my friend’s closure, this week, came with a great mixture of emotion joy, sadness, and maybe a little bit of fear as she submitted the last revisions on a paper that would allow for her graduation. For another friend this week brought her closure in a relationship that she was in, though the relationship had been over for months she still needed to go through her own process of understand and finally accepting that it was done to be able to now move on. There were moments of new beginnings too, for me was I hung my new identification badge around my neck for the first time. This happened after enough struggle getting cleared to receive it to make anyone second guess their desire for the job. Even though I have been working in my new office for nearly a month already, having my badge gave me the sensation of finally being “official.” Then this week there was also the news, that I am no longer surprised to hear but am as happy and excited each time, of the recent engagement of a friend.

Life in so many ways is patterned in the cycle of openings and closings. It is probably in how we deal with the beginnings and the endings that make us individually who were are and it is also in those same moments that I often feel the presence of those who care deeply for me. These are the people who reach out in the moments of joy and sadness, who laugh and cry with me, and who sometimes nudge me to seek the opening or closure that I need in my life. They are the ones who are dearest to my heart for they sometimes know it better then I but take the gentlest of care of it when it is exposed.