For the 10min writing challenge collaboration.

I thought maybe I would turn out something somewhat poetic, but it became a rather personal exposé of sorts on my subconscious. Anyway....here's what I wrote:

*note: grandparents=maternal grandparents, if that matters...

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Beginning now, I will be writing for 10 minutes. About what? I'm not entirely sure. Let's go on a little journey and find out...

Up to this point, life has been all about beginnings: starting school, starting jobs, starting to plan for the future...starting to worry. I worry, because what has ever ended in my life?

My parents split up a week into high school. It kick-started what would be a tough couple years in my life...the toughest to date. I was quiet, socially inept...high school was rough. I was the me that no one wanted to know, hidden inside the outer "non-me" that most still didn't want to know. Despite the end of my parents marriage, however, it was a beginning...the start of a process of learning--mostly about myself, and how much I actually like the real me...and the learning continues...

I have ended school on several occasions (graduated from elementary school, high school, and university). Even when I'll have completed my master's, it's not the end of my education...it's really just the beginning. There's a world of learning for me to experience once I can get my nose out of the books. No, the cliché rings true: graduation is just the beginning.

But why do I fear? What endings are in sight? A confession: my grandparents are old. "You don't say?" comes the sarcastic reply. Well, yes, they are. I've been fortunate to this point to have no one close to me die. This is the looming end. The end of this streak. My grandparents were the constant in my life. While I spent my youth moving houses about 10 times, they lived in the same home; when my parents split up, their home became mine for a while. They were always there with groceries, breakfast dates, hugs, and LOVE. My grandfather has played the role of father to me. My grandmother is my angel. They mean more to me than I've ever even felt comfortable expressing--as absurd as that may sound to those who know how close I am to them. My greatest fear is the end: the shattering of my cocoon...my world without true loss. My world without endings.

My grandparents are old, and I'm afraid...afraid to begin a life with endings.