I grew up believing in completion.
I was a good student.
I wrote the paper, turned it in, received the grade, and moved on to the next assignment. There was satisfaction in the certainty of it all. A beginning. A middle. An end.
A box checked.
A task completed.
A chapter closed.
The nervous system loved it.
Teachers praised it.
Parents rewarded it.
The world seemed to confirm it.
Completion was not only possible; it was expected.
Maybe that's why I became a teacher.
Every school year arrived with a clear beginning and a clear end. There were semesters to finish, report cards to distribute, summer vacations to anticipate. Even the breaks had beginnings and endings.
The rhythm felt natural.
Then I became a speech-language pathologist.
Appointments began and ended.
Plans of care were written and completed.
Goals were achieved.
Reports were finalized.
Discharge summaries were filed away.
Again and again, life appeared to offer proof that completion was real.
Even now, I notice traces of that same conditioning in my work as a coach and shamanic Reiki practitioner.
I love ceremony.
I love the way it opens, unfolds, and closes.
I love guiding someone through a journey that feels whole.
A beginning.
A middle.
An end.
The structure itself is comforting.
And if I'm honest, nature seemed to support the story, too.
Spring becomes summer.
Summer becomes autumn.
The flowers bloom and fade.
The leaves turn gold or red or brown or orange and drift to the forest floor.
Everything appears to arrive, flourish, and finish...
But lately I've begun to suspect that completion is something we invented.
A useful story.
A comforting story.
A human story.
Because when I widen the aperture, I can't actually find an ending anywhere.
The fallen leaf becomes soil.
The soil nourishes the tree.
The tree produces another leaf.
The cycle continues without consulting the calendar.
Even this body, which appears so solid and separate, is borrowed from the earth.
One day it will return.
Not disappear.
Return.
Its elements will become something else.
Food for roots.
Food for insects.
Food for life itself.
Nothing is truly completed; it simply changes form.
Energy moves.
Nature moves.
Life moves...
Perhaps what I've been calling completion is simply a pause in perception.
A place where the mind draws a line and says, "There. Finished."
But Life rarely agrees.
The story continues beyond the final page.
The season continues beneath the snow.
The river continues beyond the bend.
And what appears to be an ending is often just a point where we stop looking.
These days, whenever I find myself grasping for completion, desperate to be done once and for all, I try to remember this:
There is no once and for all.
There is only this endless dance of becoming.
Forms arising.
Forms dissolving.
Nothing complete.
Nothing incomplete.
Just Life, continuing as it always has.