Note: I drafted most of this before the Monterey Park + Half Moon Bay events, and intended to send it out during the weekend. I struggled to finish editing it because it felt too heavy to hold the grief of tragedy up against my musings below. Nevertheless, I hope my personal reflections inspire your own…
I recently rewatched the TV series Girls. (And by rewatch, I mean binged.) The series aired from 2012-2017, so it’s been a minute since I had first watched it. And there’s something so comforting (and winter-appropriate) about revisiting a world to watch your favorite storylines play out again. No surprises here – you know exactly what’s coming.
Except…as I started the final season, I realized I had never actually finished watching the show. (I’m a completionist, so stopping a show midseason is incredibly out of character for me.) I was way more invested in the characters this time around, so I couldn’t wait to watch the season finale. I need to know how it all ends!!!
Be it a book, TV show, or movie: a good ending matters. Some would argue a strong introduction is more important. But I find weak introductions forgivable as they’re easier to redeem as the story continues. An audience is unlikely to forget and forgive a bad ending. People take bad endings personally.
Because no matter how good a story is, the ending is always what sticks with you. Was it predictable? Shocking? Did it leave you with more answers or questions? What constitutes a “good” ending can be incredibly subjective, of course. (Thinking of my cousin who was deeply disappointed by the Deathly Hallows.) If it was a “bad” ending, you’re left with the bitter taste of dissatisfaction. The way an ending plays out often makes us disregard everything else leading up until that point.
I say all of this because the Girls series finale wasn’t one I really loved upon first watch. My initial feeling was: that’s it? Underwhelmed. And not because I had a specific ending I was rooting for, but because I felt like I didn’t really get the ending. So I spent some time reading through other perspectives (people who had loved or hated the ending) and interviews about why the producers wrote it that way. And then I felt placated – I could appreciate the character development and the penultimate decisions that had led to the very final end scene.
As I sat down to write today, I quickly Googled types of endings. I found how-to websites that describe the “6 types of endings” for fiction writers that can make your story better!
But we don’t live in a writer’s playground – real life endings aren’t always so contrived. We often don’t get the luxury of knowing why something may have ended the way it did.
Here’s my own list – five types of real-life endings. Conclusions, closures, and finales that rarely tie up as neatly as we see on the screen. Each one beautiful and devastating in its own way.
1. when the end is in sight
I’ve been holding onto an umbrella which is totally at the end of its life. (Like, completely losing its shape with every use, and only really functional when there’s 0 wind.) I really should just throw it out, especially since I’ve already bought a new replacement umbrella. But until this dying umbrella is completely unusable, there’s a stubborn part of me that says there’s no good reason to actively let go of it quite yet.
Immigrant parent hoarding tendencies aside, the umbrella also feels silly to hold onto it because it holds zero sentimental value for me. I couldn’t tell you when or where I acquired it (which means I’ve had it long enough – I know where I’ve acquired almost every other item in my closet). It doesn’t compare at all to my favorite clothing items or personal mementos, so why can’t I just throw it out?
Another visual: I have a vivid childhood memory of one of our neighboring kids holding onto his baby blanket for years. Dragging this tattered fabric from room to room, inside and outside. It was so worn from age and love that it was begging to be retired. But of course, he would be devastated if it was taken away sooner than he was ready to let it go.
Some endings are predictable by way of a visible decline. Whether we see the signs coming or we pretend not to, this end is inevitable. Who hasn’t tried to hold onto people, places, dreams, or jobs well past their time?
The time seems to pass both quickly and slowly as finality approaches. And even though we know it’s coming, it’s often our reluctance to let go that makes this ending difficult to accept. Sometimes the ending is visible because it’s a deadline: Countdown to college graduation. Expiration date on a half-empty milk carton. Flight date. Other times it’s because you know the signs to look for: Their health is declining. They start to withdraw.
But even if you can see the end coming, it never gets any easier. When you know the end is near, your mind and your body is well aware of it; the anticipation wakes you up throughout the night, the anxiety sets a pulse to your day. It’s distinct.
When this type of ending and change makes me feel out of control, I ground myself in the things that are (like daily rituals). And I remind myself that full acceptance and understanding often comes much, much later.
2. when the end is in your control
Maybe it seems easier to accept an ending when it isn’t your choice to make – when a conclusion is catalyzed by time or expected circumstances. Maybe it’s easier to have someone or something to blame.
How about when it is your choice?
If you’re like me, you’ve never weighed a decision lightly (lol). And life is full of small and big decisions. Take my dying umbrella as an example: I know I can throw out the umbrella at any point. And once I’ve decided to, I know that it won’t affect my life at all. But a big decision might.
This type of ending forces you into an honest reckoning with yourself. Making the decision to end something means leaving things behind. It means realizing you changed your mind and need to accept you want something totally different. You can try to chalk up the final reason to fear, intuition, peer pressure, divine intervention, and so on – but the only person who is truly responsible – and in control of this choice – is yourself.
If only life were so simple that you could completely isolate any life decisions from other interrelated considerations. (Alas. Life is usually way more complicated.) In reality, we often get stuck in indecision because we have too much to consider. We drag our feet on delivering our news because we feel like the bad guy. We’re reluctant to let go because it feels like failure.
If I move home, it means forgoing my dreams.
If I quit this job, I’m letting my team down.
If I break up with them, I’m giving up on our future.
All that to say: I believe the decision-making behind these endings are never as simple or cruel as they may seem. (There are also times the reasoning isn’t that deep, of course.) Being the one in power can be simultaneously empowering and terrifying…I feel this deeply because I’ve seen (and been on) both sides of the one who left and the one they left behind.
Choosing to leave can bring you definitive clarity, excitement, and/or peace. It can also bring you depression, doubt, and immense guilt. You won’t really know until you’ve made the choice.
3. when the end is blindsiding
…and now we’re on the other side. An ending completely out of your control – one you never expected. If you’ve experienced this one, you know this feeling all too well.
There’s a slowness to the previous two endings that doesn’t exist here. Because this type of ending, when it impacts you directly, is sudden and shocking to your core. If you don’t see the end coming, it’ll hit you out of nowhere. Straight to your chest, knocks you out of breath, no time to react. Debilitating.
Or maybe it stuns you into a state of numbness, leaving you to move through the rest of your day in a haze. Trying to make sense of it all. Searching for the words to say.
Maybe you got a brief warning: a text (can we talk?) or calendar invite that whispers something is coming.
But it doesn’t really matter. You can’t prepare for this type of ending: a layoff on a random Tuesday morning, a breakup (romantic or platonic), a sudden family death. It’s not like waking up to a bad dream, it’s more like sleeping in an unbothered slumber until you someone wakes you up with a cold bucket of reality.
No, you can’t prepare for the weighty aftermath this type of conclusion leaves you with. Something that was out-of-sight, out-of-mind before is now right in front of you. Now it’s all you can see in front of you. You have to accept a change you weren’t ready for. You have to find a new narrative.
4. when the end isn’t yours
Watching someone else pick up the pieces after a difficult ending feels kind of like secondhand embarrassment. Like you’re watching a horrible movie where you know what’s happening but you can’t reach into screen and help in any way. I say embarrassment because it’s such a weird juxtaposition of relief and discomfort – you’re so relieved it’s not happening to you, and you also feel guilty for feeling that way.
This feeling in particular is one I’ve been mulling over for the last few months. In my 20s, I’ve quit 2 or 3 jobs, experienced 1 painful breakup, had a handful of family deaths, and have seen some friendships come and go. All that to say – the range of emotions I’ve described are ones I’m well familiar with dramatic endings. But my personal life is pretty absent of such tumultuous events these days.
But I have witnessed many endings unfold in the last few years. Close enough to feel deep empathy, detached enough to preserve my emotional sanity. Is there a word for this kind of helplessness – not knowing how to best support someone while knowing there may not be anything else you can actually do?
I’ve walked with friends through just as many endings as I have beginnings. The good and bad ones. Cried together about why something ended. Cheered when it was something long-awaited. Showed up when I could. Called when I couldn’t. Learned how difficult it is to expound grief. Watched others quit before I was ready to. Wished friends well as they left the city. Talked them through the doubt of what’s next.
5. when the end leaves a space
When I left a community I was a part of for 5 years, I didn’t know how to deal with that part of my life ending. (Truthfully, I’m still figuring it out.)
This feeling is also incredibly distinct – when something disappears from your life, you’re acutely aware of the gaping void left in its place.
A natural instinct is to want to fill that space again. You see this often, coaxed on by advice (it’s good to keep yourself busy) or met by judgment (she moved on already?). When something is big enough to leave a hole in your life, it’s not easy to just move on. Your life has moved and shaped and grown around that thing, but now there’s just an emptiness. What am I supposed to do with all this love that I still have?
It’s uncomfortable to sit with empty space. Way more comfortable to find a replacement (or completely ignore it). After a breakup, I threw myself into volunteering and work and friendships. I devoted all the energy I had to filling all the space – making sure I had no space to feel anything else.
Nowadays, I’m learning to see that empty space as presence instead of absence. The space is a gift: the presence of energy and time, not the absence of something or someone.
I hold the space with reverence.
But I hold onto it lightly, knowing it will likely evolve over time. Keep the space open as I figure out what community and purpose means to me. Refuse to fill the space with my old expectations of productivity or others’ perceptions. And slowly, I’m reaching my own peace about not knowing what this space will turn into.
Sometimes things end for good reasons – even if you can’t fathom why at the time. We all want to understand why things end. But in life, there’s not always room, time, or ability to craft a pretty conclusion, which means the ending (and aftermath) can sometimes feel neverending.
Whether a chapter closes on a peaceful or an emotional note, I hope we learn to find solace in the space marking both an ending and beginning.
Endings aren’t forever – they all do, eventually, end.
“We always we wanted to go out while people were still engaged in the show, still talking about it. It felt like the saddest thing that could happen would be for people to be like, “Is Girls still on?” During Season Four, we started talking about wrapping it up; we then were able to clearly see the 20-episode arc of Seasons Five and Six that took Hannah and the girls to their logical conclusion…The show’s never been about that traditional connection, where it’s four best friends who just can’t get enough of each other. So to do a traditional everybody-gets-their-happy-ending finale didn’t feel right. At the same time, we wanted people to have the satisfaction of closure. I think we found kind of a creative way to do that. We’ll see if other people feel the same way.” – Lena Dunham on Ending “Girls”
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Happy Lunar New Year! Wishing you all good health and hopeful beginnings.