I’m Slowly Learning How to See Endings as New Beginnings

August 2nd, 2022

How do you let go and move on?

I have never been the kind of person who is good at goodbyes. Don’t get me wrong – I love the idea of new adventures, I constantly find myself daydreaming about what the future could hold, and I spend hours researching new projects that I could start. I get lost in the allure of everything that could be different about my life.

I love the idea of change, but change itself? Not so much.

The transition between where you are now and where you are trying to go can be so difficult and overwhelming. It’s easy to have big dreams and imagine what the future could hold, but the journey to get there? That’s hard for me.

I am simultaneously afraid to fail and terrified to succeed. I’m afraid to fail and become stagnant, I’m afraid of losing out on the potential to meet new people and learn new things. But losing out on a job offer or new apartment or new opportunity means you get to stay where you are – and even if it’s not quite where you want to be, at least you know how to be there.

How to Stop Playing it Safe

Succeeding pulls the rug out from under your feet. And while that may force you down the path to the life you’ve always wanted, it’s hard to know whether you’ll make it.

That path toward all my biggest dreams scares the heck out of me. I get scared I’m going to mess something up or do something wrong. I’m scared that my failures are going to become public, instead of the private failures that I can easily soothe with a little self-pity and a lot of ice cream. I worry about the mistakes that I’ve made in the past, and I wonder if other people remember them in as much painstaking detail as I do. I wonder if I even deserve to be on this path at all.

I worry about what I could be leaving behind – the person I was comfortable being, the work I was comfortable doing, the places I had finally learned how to navigate. It’s really easy to get comfortable playing it safe, even if deep down you know you’re not quite where you want to be.

How To Find Balance

It can be hard to find the grace in letting go when you want to hold on so hard that your hands bleed. But I’m slowly learning how to see endings as new beginnings, to see the potential in what lies ahead instead of desperately trying to hold onto the past. How to enjoy the freedom that rests in the space of starting over rather than trying to fit myself back into places that I’ve grown out of.

I’m learning to balance the excitement and the fear. To balance the nostalgia and the excitement. To balance the comfort of what’s familiar, and the thrilling potential of the unknown.

And yeah, it’s hard. Half the time I’m more confident than I’ve ever been, and half the time I’m convinced that I have no idea what I’m doing. But I’m showing up. I’m continuing down the path. I’m taking big risks, and learning how to fail in a way that lets me keep moving forward. I’m learning how to believe I deserve the successes. 

How To Say Goodbye

I’m learning how to say goodbye – how to let something go without shutting it away completely. How to let people leave a mark on my heart without breaking it. How to let something change me and then let it go. How to appreciate the moment for exactly what it is now.

And while I’m still figuring out how to leap into change, I know it’s one of the most important lessons that I’ll ever learn.

So let yourself change. Let yourself shed the skin that’s been restricting you for too long – you’ve grown out of it for a reason. It’s scary to be vulnerable, but that’s how we grow. Be excited for what lies ahead – how much more you’ll get to learn, how many people you’ll get to meet, how many worlds you’ll get to explore. Even when it’s scary.

The next step is waiting right in front of you – all you have to do is take it. So take it. Trust yourself. Trust the feet that have carried you before, trust the soul that has always lead you to exactly where you need to be, trust the heart that has always leapt toward what is truly meant for you.

Trust yourself, take a breath, and start down the path toward what you want. Let yourself have it. I promise that it’ll be worth it.