Ending things
On the battle with life itself and a few moments I want to remember from last year
CW: suicidal ideation
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When I try to write anything about the past year, a memory comes to mind: a certain scene from the movie I'm Thinking of Ending Things, directed by Charlie Kaufman, in which the pair of main characters sit in a moving car. The scene takes place closer to the beginning of the film, even before all the amazing, surreal things about to happen. For the present story, they don't matter as much as the conversation in the car, punctuated by the main character's voice coming from outside the frame. The woman informs us that she contemplates the end. She is thinking about the disintegration of what she currently holds dear. She is thinking about the end of the relationship with her partner - though not only that. She's thinking about "ending things," as if just contemplating the end, the awareness of the coming, final solution, provides her with a kind of peace. As viewers, we're supposed to feel a growing sense of unease at this point - the characters go in a raging snowstorm to visit the main character's parents (I don't remember any names from the film but checking them now would involve taking it less personally), though one of them would rather go anywhere else. Still, her pondering brings me a peculiar comfort, as if just thinking about surrender allows us to experience things with more detachment, letting them carry us wherever they go.
The scene in the car represents how I felt for most of the previous year - and the attitude with which I'm entering the current one, 2023. The aura of ending things surrounds everything. Please don't make me define it. Ending things appear different. They look more peaceful. If they had faces, we could see the tension leaving them, and a slight smile taking its place, forming among the relaxed muscles. Warmth emanates from the ending things, as if their disintegration reveals the home behind their facades. A home that has always waited for us to rediscover it, patiently enduring separation as we tried at all costs to sustain that which sought self-destruction. Ending things mark the return of naturally flowing composting time.
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