counting down..

I am counting down…some have been counting down since we began the social work program two years ago. Others began counting down this year. I have held off, until now. This whole crazy time of theories and research and clients and service has whirled into this point of ending, of launching, of flying.

I am 17 days from graduation.
1 more grief support group
1 more big and dreadful research paper
1 lovely bite sized self-care paper
4 classes
3 more internship days
It’s all winding and whirling down…

As I always do with endings, I start thinking about them in step with beginnings. For better or worse, the second something begins, my mind fast-forwards to the inevitable ending. In some scenarios this may be considered healthy, while it others this may just be cynical. Anyhow, I can’t help it. I have been thinking about this ending for two years, anticipating graduation and walking away with an MSW, with a whole world of social work at my feet. And I still look to that world as it waits just a couple weeks out, but I hold hints of sadness at what I am leaving behind; the community, the breadth of knowledge all around me, and the support of professors and supervisors encouraging me, the whole womb of safety that is school. In all my transitional times of coming and going, of hellos and goodbyes, I find myself more and more aware of the simultaneous feeling of both joy and sorrow. I’ve come to acknowledge that there will always be both. There will always be something to rejoice and squeal for in excitement and always something to grieve and weep over, always life and always death. This is what makes life interesting and worth living.