Endings rarely arrive with a door already open on the other side. Usually, there is just an empty room, and you standing in it, unsure what it is for yet.
I moved to be with my husband. In the unfamiliar quiet of a new place, I did what felt safest: I sought out familiar work, something close to what I already knew. It felt like the responsible thing to do. But it was also, if I am honest, a way of avoiding an ending I was not ready to name.
My husband saw it before I did. He encouraged me to pursue my own path instead, the one I had quietly been circling for years without daring to step onto it. It was terrifying. I remember the specific kind of fear that comes not from danger, but from possibility, the fear of finding out what I was actually capable of, and having no one else to credit or blame.
I said yes anyway. Slowly, I began writing, sharing my thoughts, following a thread I could not yet see the end of. This book - “If Humans Were Spaghetti”, found its way to me because that door, the familiar one, had to close first.
I think about this often when I picture bread dough resting. Nothing is happening, and yet everything is. The rest is what makes the shaping possible later. An ending is much the same. It is not empty time. It is the room being made, quietly, before you are even sure what belongs in it.
Gratitude, this week, is not for knowing what came next. It is for trusting that room was being made, even in the discomfort of not yet knowing why.
If a door has recently closed for you, you do not need to fill the room immediately. Rooms can stay empty for a while. That is allowed.
