In the very beginning you don’t care about the ending. Each smile cast your way is worth its weight in gold. The way they make you want to hold the phone to your ear longer than you ever thought you would, talk more than you ever thought you could; finding things to say when words don’t seem enough. Every time they reach out to you to embrace you in a hug but they tickle you instead, holding you so you can’t get away. Those moments when someone attacks you and they come to your defense; using words you can’t fathom were meant for you. They are your best friend, the person you trust with everything.

In the very beginning you don’t care about the ending. They have decided you are worth marrying, worth buying a diamond for; worth spending their life lying next to ONLY you…forever. The bills come and the bills go, the fights are small and the makeups big. The decisions are easy, made selflessly and happily. Vacations booked and memories made. Conversations still flow as easy as the day your hearts were first sold. And you think to yourself how lucky you are to have someone you can call your person.

In the very beginning you don’t care about the ending. Things slow down and it takes work to find things to do together. You maybe have a kid, or two, or a bunch; and you think you wouldn’t change a thing because they are the best. Your best friend, turned lover, turned parent feels pressure to find time to show the love they used to feel so readily…so easily. You fall asleep praying each night that you can be the ones that make it, that you won’t lose your person, that they will always be your paramour.

In the very beginning you don’t care about the ending. You wake up one day without a goodbye in the morning or a hello in the evening. Good morning and good night are no longer said. You ask them one day what’s been wrong, what’s happened to us and they say, “ I love you, but…” and then you think I love you, but I don’t love you. They met someone that makes them feel the way you once did. They don’t feel loved, wanted, needed, or admired anymore. You think to yourself it was inevitable and you begin spend your days feeling broken and undone.

In the very beginning you don’t care about the ending. You will probably wallow in self- pity getting depressed but after a time eventually anger takes a stand. You are angry at them; angry at yourself. Maybe you scream at the world, then the universe; then you take it up with the Creator himself. Then the anger and the hurt either become a broken record inside your head or you find perspective instead. Perspective whispers a truth you can’t hear at first. Perspective hides out in your brain until it is safe to reason with your heart.

And then the end is sitting there just watching you, waiting for you to react. How can anyone love you enough, care enough, to waste their moments loving you? How will you ever trust another beginning? If you could go back to the beginning and do it all over would you? Maybe your inner dialog becomes a chant of sorts. It isn’t my fault, to hell with them, I can do better and how dare they steal my life. Endings can never be anticipated. Every single ending is different.

In the end:

We can only control ourselves; we can choose to fight for the things we love, or we can stand in the shadows and let situations ebb and flow beyond us. Other people are beyond our control and the last thing we would want is to control someone’s love for us. This is about free will, about having love choose us despite the obstacles, sins, or the perils that befall us.   This is about us… but it is also about me, it is about being human, it is about change and nothing is more sought after or more painful than change.  Don’t begin anticipating the endings because the only true ending occurs when there is no longer breath.

In the beginning I didn’t think about the ending.  As everyone around me seems to be losing a partner to death, divorce, adultery, and so on; I am humbled to say the person I fell in love with 24 years ago is still my person.  As in many relationships it hasn’t been without dark moments and it has been work.  Although many relationships have ended around me I have witnessed them all continue on; some very painfully, many with no choice but to continue, but on nonetheless.  There is only one thing that hurts me to see and that is someone who begins to see the ending before they even start!  NO ENDINGS ALLOWED.

Some of my favorite songs about beginnings, middles, and beginning again.

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