The End.

Amidst our usual dinner chatter Andrew and I discussed our days, talked about the crazy people he encountered on the bus, refined items for our registry, and shared in our dislike for endings. I had been thinking yesterday morning about how much I hate when things end. And Andrew had mentioned at dinner that he was coming to terms with the end of his youth with all this wedding planning. We then went on a depressing tirade about all the endings that we hate. I'm not sure at what point it sounded like a good idea to make a post out of it, but I plan to redeem it by promptly posting tomorrow so you don't have to see this everyday for the next two weeks as you check my blog for an update:) You can thank me later.

I don't like that time at the end of the day between 7:30 and bed time. It's as if night just haunts me and lies to me and makes me feel as though I'm already out of time to keep me from being productive with the numerous hours I actually have left.

Sometimes I hate the end of a good book or a good movie. If it's good, I never want it to end. Especially when it's anticlimactic. I walk around feeling like there is something missing. Something unfinished. Incomplete.

Or there is the disdain for the end of life. I don't know if I will ever be able to accept death. It's so permanent and sad. That's the worst ending of them all.

There's the end of relationships--simple friendships or romantic ones. Sometimes it's an obvious, abrupt end. Other times a few weeks passed, then months, then years, and then at some point you realize that it's over. You are not friends anymore. And that's strange.

Then there's the end of life chapters. That's what I'm really disliking now. Putting everything into a mental box with a label, "Childhood," "High School," "College," "London," "Grad School," "Illinois," etc. It's silly really because let's face it, they've been over for a while. I haven't stepped onto the high school football field to cheer in seven years, but everything happened so slowly that it took me a long time to realize it's over. My next role in that type of setting will be as a parent.

There's the obvious, and much lighter: end of the weekend. No one likes to say goodbye to the days and nights of relaxing, socializing, and dreaming.

And what about the end of plant life? Flora, if you will. No one likes to see their bouquet of flowers wither and die. It always happens sooner than you'd like or expect.

Then there's the one most currently despised. Andrew's villain. The end of summer. Fall. The Sunday evening pit in his stomach when he realizes it's 4:30pm, pitch black out, and time for a new week to start. It's cram time. Squeeze in anything you didn't get to do yet. Fun is over. o-v-e-r.

The funniest thing about this fall-induced pity party is that I love change. Right after I thought about all the types of endings I hate, I remembered how much I love change. How is that? It seems paradoxical. Change is inevitably the ending of one thing and the starting of another, but I love it. I love it's newness, it's excitement, it's freedom from boredom. My only guess is that change can come in slowly so that I hardly realize one thing is ending and another is beginning. I guess that's why we get along so well--change and I. It dupes me.

So in honor of this week's big official ending--summer--and the start of his wonderful brother, the favorite child--fall--I'll be posting my favorite chili recipe tomorrow! It promises to keep you warm on a chilly, dark, fall evening!

Go embrace change. Maybe even an ending or two.