If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I’ve been mulling over a thought I first encountered in Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy by the Sea (2022). In it, the title character considers the fact that she can’t remember the last time she held her children, even though there was certainly a last time.
Some of you shared how heartbreaking “last times” are, whether we’re aware of them or not. Others took a more lighthearted approach, mentioning the good last times (last time to change a diaper!) or suggesting that we can’t live in the past.
Both approaches assume life as a series of straight lines on which we can either look forward or look back. Endings are sad because they are final.
I find more resonance in the image of a spiral or coil. Every ending is a beginning. The last time I held my daughter was the beginning of more independence for both of us. Bitter and sweet are always bumping up against each other.
In a spiral, nothing is behind you for good. You can gain some distance, but eventually you’ll circle back so that the past is nearby once again. Think of special anniversaries or moments when a memory hits you because you've re-encountered a place, a smell, or a song. Your path has circled back, not to that moment, exactly, but near enough that you could reach out to touch it. And then you keep living and it grows distant again.
Put another way, “Everything that you love, you will eventually lose. But in the end, love will return in a different form” (Susan Cain in Bittersweet, 2020).