The importance of resignifying the end

The year is ending. And once again everyone is caught by surprise: “Wow, how fast it went!”, “Girl, it’s already Christmas, did you see it?”. The list of what we didn’t have time to do takes over the conversations.

An announced end, foreseen and calculated, but frightening. We don’t like endings. We prefer beginnings, solar renewals, the celebration of what is yet to come. But without the end, there is no new. Therefore, this is a text about the end. It’s about the fear of letting things end. It’s about the fear of letting go. It’s about the fear of not having a tomorrow.

There are endings that are so natural that they seem to be sneaky. They arrive quietly and emit weak signals that require attention to understand them. Sometimes it’s over once, forever. Sometimes it ends slowly, little by little. Sometimes it ends and we don’t even notice. Sometimes, it is people who wait and celebrate the end of a stage. Sometimes it hurts. Much.

And people cry. The end of a friendship. The end of a love. The end of a job. The end of a book. The end of a show that leaves you with your eyes more alive. Farewells at the airport. The end of a journey. The end of an embrace that will take time to happen again.

Other times, we are happy, we know that the end is relief. It is expected, desired and even suffered. Never seems to arrive! It makes hours synonymous with anguish. There are people who can’t take it. Take a pill to stop feeling. There are people who don’t even let themselves be felt, better deny it.

The end of a cycle. The drawers had been messed up for months. But, suddenly, you discover that it’s time to pack them, to reorganize them, to throw them away and open new spaces. Why now and not before? Because now it’s over. For once.

The end of life. Last week I was at a party with friends and friends’ parents. Dona Clarice, 73 years old, danced happily. On Tuesday, she was preparing lunch when she realized that the recipe lacked pepper. She went to the market like she always did. She picked some peppers and started feeling sick. She fainted. She had a stroke. She arrived at the hospital 20 minutes later, already dead.

The end can be unexpected, abrupt, cruel. And he is often afraid. Always fear lurking. The fear of the end, of taking risks, of starting over, of experiencing the unknown, the fear of not recognizing yourself, of not recognizing the other by your side. But even him, the fear, ends too. A day passes. And we realize that it starts all over again.

Sometimes you’re the one who needs to understand that the end is already. Sometimes it’s the other one who rubs the end in your face and makes it hurt. It takes months to pass.

The beginning of a new friendship. When you least expect it, it’s already part of your life. A new job invitation that appears and lights up your smile. The new outfit to match your lighter soul. The butterflies in her stomach when she arrives on her first day at work, with colleagues who have never seen her before.

The small endings, the big beginnings, the big adventures. It’s all one thing. When one thing ends, another begins. And, in a little while, all over again. The end. The beginning.

Life happens and, if you’re smart, go with it hand in hand, without fighting too much! Here’s to the end because, on the next page, the beginnings are already waiting for us!

🇧🇷Inês Stanisiere is a screenwriter and writer. recently launched Of the Hidden Things Within Me and What Makes You Scared (Literacy).