At this time of year everything is winding up. The class I teach has just finished today and my son will soon be finishing his primary school years while my daughter has just finished university. The end of something that has been in our life makes us pause and think how life will be different without it.
I guess though when we start something new, whether it be a course or trip, its end is always in the back of our mind. At the beginning we don’t think about the end often, as it seems so far away but as it comes to the final weeks, days or hours the end is omnipresent. It becomes almost an obsession where the end is pushed into the forefront and everything else runs behind it.
This is of course is a microcosm of life. When we are young, the end seems so far away, unimaginable for oneself to reach the end point and thus our thoughts rarely enter the arena of death. As one matures it seems that our focus moves and a day rarely goes by where the thought of death doesn’t rear its head and plant that uneasy feeling in the depths of our fragile lives.
This pattern must be influenced by the ever increasing endings that surround us- the deaths of friends and family members, the end of periods of our lives –courses, decades, children leaving the nest (some apparently still do!) and relationships breaking down. Ends appear to be everywhere and there is no escaping. It is not surprising, we celebrate New Year but never the end of the year.
The Bay Run though will always be there. When my trip to South Coast ends, it will be there; when my children leave, it will be there; when my 50’s end, it will be there; when I lose my job, it will be there; when the gym closes down, it will be there; when West Connex is declared a disaster and demolished, it will be there; when the coalition go under, it will be there; when I end, it will be there!
