The rest is still unwritten

This July has been full of fireworks.

In a million small towns and big cities, the fireworks on the 4th are choreographed: The beginning. The middle. The end.

But my July sparks have been smacked with circles and layers, rising and falling with no clear beginning or end.

In these short July weeks I packed up and said goodbye to the place that represented the “end” of my marriage. I moved to a place that doesn’t feel like a beginning; it just feels like me.

I said goodbye to a colleague and friend who came, very distinctly, into my life the day after I left my ex-husband. It didn’t feel like an end. It felt like layers, our mash of beginnings and endings, adding up to a world of shifts and maybes and what nexts.

And I’ve been inspired by the realization that real fireworks—the builds, the ooohs, the aaahs—keep bringing new flavors of sure and unsure, right and wrong, strong and weak, brave and scared, gambling and gutless.

It’s tough to match those up with the ooohs and aaahs of something that’s bright and loud and solid and sure, but it’s something to know that those sparks are there, all the time, promises of what’s to come.

This is the finale of Do Over; the end of what’s done, the beginning of a new and building middle.