Hello,
Long time. I hope you’re okay, dealing with all the things. I hope the things aren’t too many for you to deal with.
This one’s about endings. It’s also about middles, and beginnings. There’s a poem at the end that I’m nervous and excited about sharing, but here goes:
I’ve been thinking about endings, and our inability to detach them from beginnings. I wonder if we’d look upon people from our past more fondly if we assigned greater weight to the way the relationship (platonic or not) began and how it grew, rather than how it ended.
After years of grappling with the disappointment of fizzled-out friendships, lost loves, and deep connections that turned into bland birthday wishes, I’ve finally found a way to not be mad at the people from my past: to attempt a compartmentalisation of The Beginning, The Middle, and The End.
Let’s quantify things.
The Beginning = 5x
The Middle = 10x
The End = x
Yes, the Middle is more important than both the Beginning and the End. I’ll explain.
The Beginning
How a relationship begins is important. Not the most important, but it sets the tone for the very important Middle. So, here are questions I’ve found helpful while looking back at beginnings:
How did the relationship begin, was it intentional, or was it something that happened naturally?
What kind of an effort did they make?
How did they respond to the effort you made?
What about them did you like the most, and did you, in fact like something about them or did you just like the attention/interest/company they represented?
How a friendship begins is a thing of beauty, often amusing and endearing to think about. It’s a subtle - but not too subtle - show of desire between two adult humans who mostly pretend to be ‘chill’; an abundantly courageous moment of saying ‘Hey, I want to do this thing with you. Want to go do it together this weekend?’
Who were you when the relationship started, and how is that person different from who you are today? Now ask these questions about them, too.
Growth is a funny thing. Sometimes people outgrow us, and other times we outgrow them. Both are okay. One day, you look around, and notice a strange feeling of displacement in the space you inhabit. That’s when you know it’s time to leave.
The Middle - the most important phase of all
The Middle is the most important because it is the hardest of all. It is what takes courage and effort, repeatedly. The Middle is where the magic happens.
How did they maintain the relationship?
Did they make you want to maintain the relationship?
How did they make you feel?
Depending on how long your relationship lasted, did they hold space for all your versions? Did you hold space for theirs? How was this exchange?
The Middle is where we show up. Where we say hard things. Where we show them we care. When we miss someone, we often miss - not the beginning, nor the end - we miss The Middle. The Middle is where two former friends create the language they spend a lifetime revisiting, but never speaking again.
Finally, The End
The least important, because it’s often inevitable. It was, more often than not, a long time in the making. How people leave still holds some amount of importance, so I won’t say the end is entirely irrelevant. Contrary to what many believe, though, The End is not the most important thing.
How fondly we look upon a person from the past
= f [5(The Beginning), 10(The Middle), The End]
When we calculate the importance of a relationship, we hold on to The End because it’s the most recent. We hold on to what they said or didn’t say, and how they left. We hold on to what we could’ve said or done, or what we did wrong. We mistake our helplessness for hatred or anger for how they left. While really, all we are is grieving the leftovers.
Leftovers: Things you made a mental note about sharing with them, screenshots you took from an article about something you discussed with them. That painting you told them you'd gift them one day, that new restaurant you said you'd check out together, the wedding you promised to plan someday, the grown-ups you dreamed of being together.
I read somewhere that in French, the words for I miss you are tu me manques, which translates to you are missing from me. When something ends, you’re not only missing someone’s presence, but you’re feeling the sharpness of their absence from you.
Here’s the poem I wrote about Endings, and my weird relationship with them -
Time of death
Things have feelings.
I’m hanging my freshly done laundry on a Tuesday morning and notice the wear on an old grey T-shirt. I tell myself I should throw it out soon.
It’s time.
I don’t know what it means for the time of death to have arrived. That just because it’s worn out, it deserves to be thrown out. It’s not fair.
Things. Have. Feelings.
As I wrestle with myself about the fate of this T-shirt, I think about the hilarity of it all. It’s a T-shirt! An inanimate object to which I’ve now attached the concept of fairness and feelings. Ridiculous.
But things have feelings!
Maybe it has something to do with my desire to save everything. With my reluctance to ever call the time of death.
I wonder what a terrible doctor I’d have made. Can you imagine? A doctor who can never bring herself to call a thing dead? What do you mean the patient isn’t doing well? Ventilator? Well, let’s ventilate him back to life.
Nobody dies on my watch.
A plant on my balcony has been repotted in hopes of resuscitation. For weeks, I have diligently watered it and placed it strategically to receive the optimum sunlight. If you take care of things, they can survive anything.
Nothing dies on my watch.
The plant has been dead for a long time. The t-shirt has served its time. The relationship has run its course. Some things die no matter who’s watching.
I hate endings because I hate feeling helpless in the face of pain. Which is to say I don’t know how not to be in control; To just stand there and watch while something dies. An act of resuscitation is also an act of resisting change.
Holding on takes strength.
Letting go takes courage.
And I’m learning they are not the same thing.
Embracing endings,
Yashmi
P.S. Thank you, Jude, Anthony, Sarah, Lyle from Foster for helping me edit this piece.
Honestly, I’d never have published the poem if it wasn’t for Foster and its brilliant team of editors.
Love this! Gets better with every newsletter!! So proud <3
I really love this post. I have come to the painful realization that I don’t handle endings well. I tend to hold onto dead branches longer than I need to and I’m learning to let it go.