“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished; that will be the beginning.”
– Louis L’Amour
I have seen this quote before and it tickled my brain because I thought it reminded me of something and eventually I figured it out. It is the lyrics from “Closing Time by Semisonic” that sparked that connection in my brain.
Closing time
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.
Both of these quotes have been more important in my life than I had ever expected. I have had multiple endings recently and as Louis said “when you believe everything is finished” that really hit home. I know that I thought, not that long ago, that I would never find my happiness again. I couldn’t see a future where I to have what I needed, what I wanted. Everything had ended and I had no hope. It felt like everything was finished.
Everything I had known before was finished, the part I wasn’t aware of was that there actually was a new beginning waiting. You would think at my age that I would know this. This isn’t my first go around. But I was so lost in the despair of the moment that I had blinders on and wallowed in those feelings of failure and loss.
Then my new beginning found me. I was very lucky. Things could have worked out so very differently for me, for us. But here we are against all odd making our way through the wilds of a new relationship. And we are really just getting started. Just finding out how we fit, where all the kinks align and don’t align and where we are willing to compromise.
That is the thing about new beginnings, that you get to do that learning. I can tell you one thing for sure. I will do my damnedest to make sure I learn from my endings and not forget what they have taught me. I might still fuck things up, but I guarantee it will be in a whole new way from last time.
Who knows? Maybe I will have learned enough to be better, to do better, to be the man that she deserves. I would like this to be my last Closing Time
