Continually Reinventing Myself

At the close of every one of my childhood visits with my grandmother, she would comfort me with the aphorism, “All good things must come to an end.” At the time, I found it depressing rather than comforting, but now I see the truth of it.  And I’m comforted.

It’s on my mind right now because it’s the end of the TV season.  After spending ten months working on a show, the end arrives.  The show, the experience, was a good thing. And now it’s nearly over and it feels like jumping off a cliff into an empty abyss of not-knowing.  But I tell myself, another good thing will come along, and that’s only possible because of the ending that I’m facing.  Without that ending, there wouldn’t be room in my life for the next good thing.

To some degree that feels like meaningless words, just an effort to make myself feel better, but actually disconnected to the reality I’m facing.  And then I tell myself, it’s a necessary grieving process and I have to let myself go through that.  There’s a lot of talking to myself in a pendulum kind of way and it’s exhausting.

But we all know about that. Whether you’re on an 80-day streaming production schedule or a weekend web series shoot, it ends.  Everything does.  It’s a continual reinvention of one’s self, a start-and-stop-and-start process, an evolution that ideally leads one by experience and learning to improvement and further to wisdom. I understand the reason for the journey, it’s an expression of life itself in a microcosm.  I just don’t like it right now, facing wrap and potential unemployment. 

So then I slap myself for complaining and say, “Buckle up!  Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!  Start the affirmations! Think positive, because thought will create the next wonderful thing!”  All of that is true, and I’ll be able to say it and believe it once the ending has actually happened and I turn my face toward the sun.  But right now the dark ending is staring me in the face.

I’ll survive, as I’ve done many times before.  But it never gets easier or more comfortable.

We all go through it. I speculate that it’s not just people in the entertainment business, but every person on the planet.  We learn, we grow, and we can do that because all good things must come to an end.  Thank you, Grandma!