Are there any endings that we really want to happen? Even the best endings – the climax of a wonderful piece of music, the last page of a rivetting book – leave us in some way ‘sad’. When we have been enjoying something good, the fact that it has ended will – no matter how much pleasure it has afforded us – inevitably bring with it at least a tinge of disappointment. Indeed it may well be the case that the better the thing is, the more we feel a “loss” at its conclusion.
Some endings are intrinsically sad – these we want to avoid – these we shy away from – even when we know they are for the best in the long run.
This week sees an “ending” in my life – for almost thirty five years my working home has been the same. There have been a few times when I have been seconded away from there for a while, including one spell of almost two years in Austria, but it has always been the case that I would “return home” after those spells away and resume “business as usual”.
The site where I have worked all that time has seen many changes – very little of the ‘substance’ remains unchanged over those years. My desk has been located in about a dozen different places – although now I am once again almost in the same place as it started. The business itself has undergone changes – four different owning companies and innumerable name changes. My day to day work is quite different – and of course my hair is greyer!!
This week it ends – the business is moving – and I am along with it – and I will have a new “home”.
Leaving aside the fact that the changes are, on the whole, not positive – just the fact that this “old friend” is no longer going to feature in my life means that this is one of those endings that is not looked forward to.
I remember – many years ago when I was young…. – the feelings that surfaced at the end of music schools, or leaving school, or graduating from University – you stand around with a group of people who have become your ‘world’ for a few days/months/years and say your goodbyes – knowing that in many cases you would see them again within days – or at least next year – but still saddened by the fact that “this” event had come to an end.
As the business moves – it is made less palatable by the fact that many are not moving with it – so a large number of people who have become part of my life over those years are now departing from it. It is also the culmination of a split from the ‘other’ half of the site – which used to be the same business – is now a different company – and next week will no longer be my neighbours – taking with it many people that I have lived my life alongside for all these years.
People have, of course, come and gone throughout those years – many I knew are now retired or have passed on. Plenty have moved on to other jobs, in other businesses, in different towns. But this ending is different from all of those – and peculiarly different from ‘just’ me leaving. For me, much will go on exactly as before – just in a different place – but…. I guess the foundation is being taken away and, in particular, there is a sense in which there is a finality about it in that there is no turning back on this one.
I know that there have been endings in the past that are much more ‘important’ than this one in terms of the overall effects. I don’t think that I am particularly good at endings – I can think of plenty that I either avoided or ‘ignored’ and others that I really didn’t enjoy. This particular one I cannot have any effect on – I cannot avoid it (for numerous reasons) and I certainly can’t ignore it – nor can I just carry on “despite it” – that is not an option this time around.
There will be many quite large effects from this ending – more time spent travelling to and from work – therefore less time for everything else – those are, without doubt the most fundamental effects having knock ons to lots of other things. There are, I think, going to be other types of effect – the time one is a “practical” problem – there will certainly be “psychological” effects and “social” effects.
Actually this last – the “social” effects – highlights the crux – although in this case the ending is all about a “place” – not exactly a building, since the buildings have changed over the years, but more a geographical position that holds many memories – the real issue, and most influential effect, is the people. As it is with ALL endings I think.
I’ve touched on it above – but to make it more explicit – at the end of, for example, one of the school’s music courses the sadness is not that the course itself has finished, but that all the relationships that were built up in the ten or eleven days that it lasted were about to be changed – or perhaps completely broken. Certainly they would never be the same again.
In some cases, the “people relationships” are maintained despite the changes round about. I know that there are folks I used to work with, folks I made music with and folks I had fun with (some folks fell into all three of those categories….) that I still maintain a relationship with despite the changes going on around us and the many “endings” that we have together endured. So it will be this time.
However, all endings involve the termination of these types of relationships – it is inevitable. Yes, in many cases it is the weaker relationships that come to a close – but in some cases it is quite strong ones – but those that are held together by the ‘circumstance’ that is ending. I think of one guy whom I have known for over thirty years, shared many a joke together, run together, sat next to in an office, and more – but I don’t expect to see him again because what linked us was our work together here at this site – and he has chosen not to move!
The “red thread” connecting is has been loosened considerably!! I’ve spoken elsewhere about those threads and it is surely clear that in the working environment what we have is a microcosm of the bigger world. There are some people within the business that I am “tightly coupled” to – my line manager; my various customers; some specific ‘experts’; and so on. Not all of those are relationships that are ‘permanently’ in a “tightly coupled” state – and in some cases, e.g. the line manager, the coupling is perhaps more to the role than the person – although inevitably there exists a tight coupling with the specific individual at least for as long as he performs the role – in some cases other couplings exist alongside.
Actually this is a useful extension of the red thread thinking – sometimes there are people with whom we are coupled in multiple ways – thus, when one thread holds us close, other threads may well have some “slack”!! I guess the prime example of this is marriage – I would think that ALL married couples are connected to each other in many ways – how often, for instance, do we hear that couples stay together “for the children”! Regardless of whether this is a ‘good’ thing or not it illustrates the multiple coupling that exists.
I can think of one person at work, as an example, who initially became “linked” to me when we were working on “opposite sides of the requirement’s fence” on the same project. Later we became colleagues in the same team – we became running companions – he became my ‘boss’ – he also became my line manager – later still I became his ‘advisor’ – still later he was my ‘customer’. Throughout all these roles we have also remained friends – regardless of which red thread was pulling us together at any given time.
It would be easy to find many others who have been in my life – working and other – in a similar multitude of ‘relationships’ and through which we have nutured a close coupling regardless of which particular thread is maintaining it.
That was a bit of a diversion – endings inevitably loosen threads – but need not break them completely – indeed perhaps the threads are all unbreakable (I think I have discussed that idea before as well) – they just become very slack such that we no longer feel the ‘pull’ that they are exerting. I have certainly got a few examples of threads that seemed broken that have pulled tight again many years later. We cannot always predict which will tighten and which will drift off forever.
That is why, I guess, endings are inevitably sad occasions – the forces that held the threads taut are no longer there and – unless something else takes the strain – there is nothing left to keep the two ends close.
Perhaps I don’t like endings because they are precisely the times when you need to make a big effort to maintain whatever relationships are present – even when the endings are ‘good’ ones. That understanding at least means that the real issues are highlighted – its not about what has finished, its about the effort required to maintain everything else in the absence of that thing that is no longer there.
Which threads are worth hanging on tight to?? It will never be quite that simple though will it – because every bit of “holding on tight” has a cost – sometimes prohibitive. It is also likely that in some cases it will require cooperation to keep the thread tight – and not always just from the person (or thing) at the other end of the thread.
All of these ideas are worthy of further discussion – but for now – the end is nigh…..