End.

We’ve become used to associating endings with sadness. We’ve been told that things that end are to be mourned or regretted for their perpetual unfinished state. But, this week, myself and my co-host decided to end the TV My Husband Hates podcast and it was such a joyful end in so may ways that it’s made me reconsider how we approach things and why, sometimes, we take too long to call time on something.

It applies to everything right? Friendships, jobs, relationships, behavioural habits. There are lots of things that we are able to control and end if they aren’t serving us and yet so many of us keep on going. Take the podcast for example. I’d been drowning in work for a couple of months and watching 6 hours of TV and spending 2 hours recording was really taking its toll. I was torn. I loved the podcast but I was starting to resent it but I also didn’t want to let my co-host (and best friend) down.

I saw a quote on Quotes By Christie that said:

…and while I love the truth of it, it feels unfinished. What it should say is, “You know you have a big heart when you feel bad for doing what’s best for you, but you do it anyway, because you and your feelings count too.”

I should have called time on the podcast a while ago. My friend admitted the same thing. In the end it was the reality that her new ‘part time’ job was actually full time and she couldn’t do it. She called me, I asked her how the job was going, she said, ‘Great, but I can’t do the podcast anymore,’ and just like that it was done.

Endings don’t have to be messy. We fear them and avoid them and put them off for as long as we can because we believe they will be messy but not all of them are. Some of them are the right thing at the right time.

For the first time in about 10 years, I’m not stretched too thin. I have time to think and plan and execute. I’m not scrabbling around for creative ideas and I wish I could take the credit for knowing when to call time on the thing that was causing the strain. Instead, that award goes to my friend Reagan who knew exactly what needed to be done and when it needed to be done.

Not only did she save my emotional skin this time but she taught me that ending something for your own good doesn’t have to be messy and painful. It can be joyful and exciting.

It was fun while it lasted though…