Endings and Beginnings

As I sit here writing this post, it's Sunday evening. The Sunday before the first Monday of a new work week. The first work week of a new school year. It is the last Sunday evening of the summer, for me.

​Last year I wrote about having that bittersweet feeling. And I feel it again. Endings have such a sadness to them. And we shouldn’t feel bad that we feel this sadness when things come to an end. 
 
This summer I left a school and will be starting a new one tomorrow. As I left, my principal said to me everything in life that really means something to us is always terrifying when it begins and sad when it ends.  And it’s so true.  A new job. A marriage. The birth of a child. The birth of a friendship. Starting school. Everything.
 
But we also can’t allow ourselves to be sad forever. So it’s nice to know that endings also signify a new beginning.
 
Last year, at this time I left my readers with some end of summer poems. But this year I started thinking about endings and found some amazing quotes.
 
Two of my favorites are about butterflies.

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending, it became a butterfly. -Unknown/Proverb

If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies.  - Unknown
 
"There is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the story."
-Frank Herbert
 
"Ends are not bad things, they just mean that something else is about to begin. And there are many things that don't really end, anyway, they just begin again in a new way. Ends are not bad and many ends aren't really an ending; some things are never-ending."
-C. JoyBell C.
 
 
 "The greatest challenges humans face throw-out their lives are two:
1- the challenge of where to start
2- the challenge of when to stop."
-Sameh Elsayed
 
 
 
"Every ending is a beginning. We just don't know it at the time."
-Mitch Albom
 
 
"And above all else, remember that the end of a movie (or a TV show, or a play, or a book) is never really the end."
-Jen Calonita,On Location
 
And for anyone who has studied the craft of writing:
"The best endings resonate because they echo a word, phrase, or image from earlier in the story, and the reader is prompted to think back to that reference and speculate on a deeper meaning."
-James Plath

 
​
This last one if my favorite, not only because it’s related to writing but because it’s related to life.  It makes me think about in life when something has ended, what image or word or phrase in the beginning of the that story (in my life) would have echoed near the end that would have some greater meaning?
 
How about you? What image from your beginning would be echoed near the end? And why?
 
How do you feel about endings?

One of the last days of summer...