Done is Good

I took my last exam of the term today. I'd been waiting three weeks (since my penultimate exam) to take the damn thing. Normally once I finish an exam I'm filled with this gigantic, thrilling sensation of relief and joy. I didn't even have it in me to feel all that pleased. Over the past three weeks, the prospect of this exam has been slowly draining my life force out of me like a terminal illness. Then, some time near midnight it dawned on me: I was done. The relief was delayed but it finally came. I celebrated with two cups of Sainsbury's tiramisu and a marathon of Wonderfalls.

When something is done, when it ends, you never know how to feel about it. Sometimes you think you know how you should feel and sometimes you do feel that way but more often than not, we surprise ourselves. Presumably, when something ends, you're coming out of a liminal state. The word “liminal” comes from the Greek word for “threshold”, the space of an archway between two rooms. In a rite of passage, it's the transition from one part of your life to another. Coming out of that state of liminalty can be disorienting or even frightening. Yet, once this period comes to an end, something new is positioned to begin.

Somewhere between my second cup of tiramisu and the last episode of Wonderfalls, a small bit of the universe revealed itself to me. It may seem obvious, but I realized things are ending every single moment. That sentence, it just ended. There, it happened again! Spacetime itself is a series of points that propel those who exist in it forward along a line, ending our stay at one moment in time and moving us to the next. Even spacetime has an end (in theory) which (in theory) is directly followed by a new universe composed of a new spacetime formed from the mass of the one that preceded it.

All things come to an end; a life, a relationship, a school term. The end is not the end, though. To recognize that is pretty useful. Family is always family. Love never dies. Academia will always suck at your soul. Once something is over, however, you're able to understand it from the outside looking in, reflect on it, feel relief. Granted, you're probably about to be thrown into something just as big as whatever you just came out of but for a few moments, at least, the universe might open itself to you long enough to get some insight on whatever existence is about to throw at you.

That was heavy. Now you all know why I don't smoke pot; my mind would undoubtedly EXPLODE.