Bittersweet Endings & New Beginnings
"All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time."
-Mitch Albom
Spring usually means a time of new beginnings. The blossoms and buds are a cue for us to emerge from the cold den of winter and breathe in a new season of renewal. But for me, it is different. My days and weeks are filled, yet again, with a number of “last times”. The last time my family all has the same spring break. The last parents' night at school. The last time I watched my daughter as a cheerleader at a basketball game. The last prom.
It is a season of bittersweet tears. A season of “get a picture of that” and “I can’t believe this is happening.” My youngest daughter, just like her sister before her, is feeling very ready. She is ready to experience all of these endings in anticipation of what lies on the other side. She has absolutely loved high school, but she is ready to move on.
I, on the other hand, am a bit uncertain. It's not like I haven’t experienced endings before; it’s just that this one feels like a tectonic shift.
Endings show up in many forms: children moving on, friendships fading, careers shifting, loved ones passing. They can come with pain, uncertainty, and the temptation to cling tightly to what was.
We can’t avoid endings. They’re as natural as the seasons. Chapters must close for new ones to be written. The beauty lies not in trying to prevent them, but in how we move through them.
In coaching, I often tell clients that transitions are invitations. They invite us to grow, to redefine who we are, and to rediscover what matters most. The pain of goodbye is real, but so is the promise of what’s next. I guess it is time to take my own medicine.
So I’m learning to sit in this tension as I watch the joy my daughter holds for her upcoming new adventure while I ache knowing her absence is coming for me. I’m learning not to rush through it, but to honor it. To trust that life is unfolding as it should, and that on the other side of every ending is a door quietly opening.
I give myself permission to grieve, to feel a little lost, and to not have it all figured out.
I know that in the beyond, there is something new waiting. I don’t know what it is, but I am not supposed to. Instead, I ready my heart and my mind to embrace, with grace and hope, a new Spring.
TWO TIPS FOR EMBRACING THE ENDINGS
1. HONOR THE ENDING
We often want to skip over the uncomfortable parts (I hate crying, especially in public!), but endings deserve acknowledgment. Take time to reflect, celebrate, grieve, or simply pause. Write a letter, hold a small ritual, share memories. Be sure to mark the moment. Don’t rush through the ending. By giving yourself space to feel the full range of emotions, you allow healing and make room for what's next.
2. EMBRACE THE NEW WISDOM
Every ending brings with it the wisdom, memories, and growth from what came before. Ask yourself: What have I learned? How have I changed? What parts of this experience or relationship will always stay with me? Reflecting on what we have experienced and learned helps us see the ending as a growth experience. Letting go in this way helps it feel less like loss and more like legacy. It is the fabric of our life, and how we wrestle through it will determine who we are becoming for this next season.
Traci Schubert Barrett is a sought-after international speaker and best-selling author of What If There’s More? Finding Significance Beyond Success, and the founder of Navigate the Journey, a leading business consulting and leadership development firm.
As one of the founders of the wildly popular national cable television network HGTV, she enjoyed the amazing ride of taking a fledgling idea and turning it into a billion-dollar media empire. But after over twenty years in the media industry, Traci began to wonder, what if there’s more to our vocational lives than success? In a leap of faith, she quit her executive job and went on a soul-searching journey, leading her to create the Strategic Life Map process.
With a Master's in Professional Psychology and over 30 years of business experience, Traci specializes in coaching C-suite executives and business leaders, helping them define their greatest impact and create clarity for the future chapters of their lives.
