Every end has a beginning on both sides. It is those transition periods that can be the most challenging. A whole lot of our endings overwhelm the beginning that happens – or COULD happen at the same time. Sometimes we wrestle for weeks, months, or even years before we can let go of the end and fully embrace the new beginning … that isn’t so much of a beginning anymore. It can be even more challenging to look back and see what resources we gained from the previous beginning (and middle) that just ended.
What is especially important is to recognize the things that haven’t actually ended, but came through from a previous beginning to this one. Don’t throw every beginning out with the ending, as they say. Well, actually, they don’t say that, but they should.
Why am I nattering on about beginnings and endings?
Mostly because I just experienced one. An ending, I mean. A big one for me. One of them that made my heart feel like it had been trampled, and by my own feet, no less. I am smack in the middle of that challenging, messy, prone to navel gazing transition into a new beginning.
I want to tell you the story.
I warn you that it is a bird story. But I don’t think you have to be a bird person to benefit from it, or even enjoy it. At the core, it is a human story. It’s about how we wrestle with unpacking our design and all of the wonders, surprises and disappointments that go along with it. It’s about weighing the realities of the present against the uncertainties of the future and making decisions with outcomes we can’t predict. It’s about things that don’t turn out the way we dreamed. I hope that you will be encouraged and challenged. I hope that it will make you think and ask questions you haven’t asked before. I hope it will give you permission to risk. And if I have done my job well, you will laugh (or at least grin and roll your eyes occasionally) and maybe even cry.
To tell you the story, I have to start at the beginning. The other beginning. Not the one I am at now. The one on the other side of the end. You know, where it all began.
To be continued (for quite a while, based on the number of sticky notes on my wall) …
Beyond the Horizon 
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