Making peace with painful endings

Years ago, I watched a very intense and powerful French film. The kind of film that has you gripped from the start, immersed in the plot and heavily invested in its characters.

I laughed. I cried. I cared about these people and what happened to them.

And then, it ended.

With no warning.

In the middle of the emotional turmoil.

In the middle of the story.

It ended.

I was so stunned to see the final credits rolling up the screen I had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

And when I realised that I wasn’t imagining things and the film really was over without any resolution I was so angry and disappointed I actually yelled, ‘NO!’ at the TV.

As the credits continued to roll, I tried to console myself with thoughts like, well, it makes a change from the neat and tidy happily ever afters of Hollywood movies and fairytales.

But this didn’t make me feel better at all.

I felt as if I’d been cheated somehow. I’d invested time, energy and emotion into the story playing out in front of me, only to get zero return on that investment.

Now I’d never know how the characters’ story ended. I’d never know if their conflicts - inner and outer - were resolved. I certainly felt as if I’d had no closure.

It’s funny because, all these years later, I can’t remember a thing about the characters or the story, but the memory of the anger and disappointment I felt is visceral.

As a novelist, I put a lot of thought into the endings of my books.

On the one hand, I’m acutely aware that life is messy and things can’t always be neatly tied up with a bow on top, but on the other hand, having invested their time, energy and money in the novel, I want my reader to be left with a feeling of resolution and a sense of hope.

But real life is not a novel or a movie, and we aren’t able to control the other characters in our story.

So, sometimes, we’ll experience endings that feel deeply unsatisfactory.

I experienced an ending like that last year when someone I considered a close friend of mine – someone I’d known for years – suddenly disappeared on me.

I’d gone travelling by that point so when I say that she disappeared I mean that she suddenly stopped contacting me and responding to my messages, with no explanation.

It was very hurtful and confusing and looking back on it now, it was reminiscent of that French film in terms of how shocked it made me feel.

I just couldn’t understand why she’d decided to call time on our friendship and I went over and over our last interactions, trawling for some kind of clue I might have missed.

Had I said something that had pissed her off?

Had she said something I’d missed that had hinted at the ending to come?

The last time we’d met when I’d been on a visit to the UK, I remembered her saying something that I thought was in jest, about how she felt she didn’t have anything of great interest to share compared to me now that I was travelling and meeting new people and seeing new places.

Had that been the issue, I wondered. Had I inadvertently been making her feel crap about her own life?

But if this was the case it felt very unfair. She’d known me for years and had seen the struggles I’d been through as a single mum and how hard I’d worked to get to the point where I was able to live and work as a digital nomad.

And even though I’d gone travelling, I still cared about her enough to check in with her almost every day.

But of course, it might not have been that at all.

The fact is, I’ll never know why she decided to ghost on me because she never told me, so I’ve been left with feelings of confusion and hurt that have lingered to this day.

It can be so hard to make sense of a sudden and painful ending that you didn’t see coming.

Especially when you’re left with no explanation.

I’ve come to learn that in cases like this you have to make peace with the fact that you’ll probably never know.

Sometimes life takes a dramatic plot twist and a character you trusted implicitly turns out to not quite be who you thought they were.

Sometimes you have an ending - of a job, a home, a friendship, a relationship - thrust upon you without any warning.

But although it might not feel like it at the time, you still have some control over the narrative and how you choose to frame it.

You know your own truth and your own experience of what happened. And no-one can ever take that away from you.

You can create your own closure (after processing and releasing the confusion and hurt) by choosing to let go and move on.

Because – and here’s the really important part – it’s just the end of a chapter, and not the entire story.

One thing I’ve learned time and again in life is that so often, painful endings lead to happy new beginnings. In fact, looking back on my own life, the painful endings I’ve been through have been essential for my happy new beginnings.

this pic isn’t of a happy beginning but it is of the time my dad cut off the tops of his socks and made them into a headband for me, and looking at it always make me happy!

The trick, I think, is to keep the faith that whatever shock twist life might throw at you, it can be for the greater good of your character development and the overarching plot of your story - if of course, you choose to see it that way

Until next week,sending love…

Siobhan