Reflection by Xán Miñán, Chaplain’s Office Woodbridge Fellow

I find myself again at a loss for words, which honestly isn't a frequent occurrence—there's nothing like penning a Consider This to make one's mind somehow go completely blank, as former contributors may know all too well. How does one write a relevant, poignant reflection?—I mean, this question is a doozy just philosophically, let alone when one realizes it's for the last time (as this is for me) at the end of a whirlwind of two years. So comes to a (near) close my time putting together for you all this little slice of regular inbox fodder.

 

I've never liked endings. Books especially I can't seem to ever complete, but also TV series I start, video games too. Written pieces without conclusions, song ideas with no chorus, art that never escapes the sketch or study. The end of the day? My least favorite time. I've always found sunsets remarkably upsetting. Calling it a day at bedtime is the single biggest ask my biological clock has ever posed every 16 hours or so. Forget about saying bye, ever.

 

It's truly become, consciously or un-, an almost characteristic habit to not finish many things I start. Potential underlying conditions aside, I've always experienced this as mostly an emotional response. There's just something palpably thrilling in the unfinished, a special magic in the possibility of continuation, however tenuous or even hopeless that may seem. And... I find all the opposite in an ending. A sour taste after the last bite; an ache for more.

 

I do, however, put stock in a cliffhanger: the only ending that's reconcilable in my chart of emotional account. In that spirit, I leave you all naught but lyrics: