The end

How to not feel like shit about an ending by finding inspiration from the planets.

So, I was laid off.

Six years of work comes to an end. When people ask me how I feel about it, my go-to one-liner is something about it “not ending on my own terms.” (Thinking about this statement now, though, I wonder if anything really ends on our own terms…?)

I’ve grown up with a fear of endings: not wanting the book or movie to end, dragging out a relationship that should end, the dread of saying goodbye to family and friends before leaving them.

But this job ending has a different texture to it. I don’t hate it as much I usually loathe an ending. Maybe because motherhood launched me into a fast-track of personal growth, maybe because I've got a lot of support, or maybe a secret third thing.

When I sat down to write about why this ending feels different to me, I asked my tarot deck what could ground or guide my writing. I pulled Death. I laughed, because, well, duh! Death is the ultimate ending card! But of course this card is inherently also about beginnings, because endings and beginnings are two sides of the same coin. That’s just how it works. You can’t end something without also starting anew. It’s all just a circle, a cycle, one part of the line bleeding into the other.

For a reframe on endings, I think about the planets as a cosmic blueprint. They turn, ever spinning, ever moving on, effortlessly going through their cycles without resistance, without grief for an ending or exhilaration for a beginning. They spin, slow and steady, unwavering in their marvelous capacity to complete cycles.

The truth is, everything is ending and beginning all the time. It’s all constantly spinning, turning, circling through a cycle. We are all spinning tops or whirling dervishes, twirling through life, swirling through our own cycles.

So, maybe a cycle is a prayer. And I am spinning on my own axis, circling through my countless endings and beginnings, deaths and rebirths—all of it a prayer of surrender to the planets that pull me with them in their infinite, unyielding, life-sustaining orbits.

Ending prayer. Digital collage, Nov. 2023