Nearing the end

It was hard to know how to conclude.

I guess it would have to be.

I have been listening to a lot and reading and writing a lot. I know that things work together, but sometimes there are specific parts that stick out.

Reading in The Myth of Closure by Pauline Boss, there was a part about making meaning and coming to terms. Sometimes maybe the answer is just a life well-lived, and that can be enough.

That actually fits.

My mother was was working class, not particularly educated, and certainly not rich or famous. She was not perfect, but she was good. She kept going when things were hard, she cared about people, and she lived according to her values. 

That's pretty good.

That led to two of the last songs: 

1/29 “Hourglass” by Mary J. Blige
1/30 “Je Ne Regrette Rien” by Edith Piaf

If time is running out and there is a reckoning, are you going to be okay with your choices?

I loved "Hourglass" from the first time I heard it, closing out a documentary about Mary J. Blige.(That was My Life from 2011, but I watched it in 2021.)

"Je Ne Regrette Rien" has been around a lot longer, but I don't think I had heard it before the Dove commercial. 

That depicts a more adventurous life than Mom's, but it's still true. She doesn't have to regret anything.

As I was thinking about that, it became true for me as well.

Caring for her has been emotionally, physically, and financially hard. I always knew it was the right thing to do, so that's what I did. 

That may be the ways in which we are most alike; we had a lot of differences. Most of our conflicts came because of those differences, but we are also alike. 

I wouldn't have regretted it anyway, but I feel like the burnout is finally clearing up, and I am in school and getting closer to graduation... there is a new sense of possibility.

Yeah, there's going to be pain along the path; what's new? But there's going to be joy and good things too. 

That made the right choice for closing obvious. 

1/31 “The Girl With the Flaxen Hair” by Debussy, performed by Walter Morse Rummel

Well, obvious to me. 

The title indicates one thing, but the image that music evokes for me is something like floating down a canyon. The end of the gorge is approaching and the view is going to open up, but for right now all you know is that there is light ahead, but not what the light will show.

I am feeling more ready for what's next.

Related posts:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2024/08/my-mother-my-talk.html