Have you ever been in a bar or a club and the DJ chooses to roll out Semisonic’s “Closing Time” to end the night?
Of course you have. Unless you haven’t been in a bar or a club in twenty years. Or you hang out at higher end spots where the DJ knows better.
It’s a silly, schmaltzy song, and it is probably more hated than loved, given how much it is overplayed. When I hear the opening piano chords, I have to resist the temptation to roll my eyes.
And yet today my mind is enveloped by one key line from this poppy nonsensical song:
“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”
It is funny how apt a line can be, no matter where it is found.
Tomorrow, the restaurant I work for will be closing for the final time, and I expect to be out of a job.
But today I am not so concerned about not having a job, but instead on losing that daily human contact.
The reality is that I generally love human beings. I like being around them with all their quirks and humors and emotions.
And the restaurant business was how I maintained that contact. Yes, I am by nature an introvert and it is only a matter of time before I need to be by myself for a while.
But I am like the rope in a contest of tug of war between my desire to be alone and my need to have some regular contact with friendly people.
Two restaurants I used to work out have already closed, and I transferred from a third to the current location. So I have left friends behind before. It was always hard. I tried my best to keep in touch, although it is incredible how difficult that can be when you don’t see or hear from old friends on a day to day basis.
This last time may be the most difficult one yet. In every other case where I was leaving, I was going to some place new, where I knew I would make more friends and have novel experiences. This time, I don’t expect to be offered a position to move to, and even if I did, I am inclined by my life goals to turn it down.
So I return to that weirdly on point lyric in an otherwise forgettable tune.
This is a new beginning. And the end of some other beginning’s end.
I have been here before. I am not certain that the precipice at the end of which I currently stand has ever been so high and dark. But the fact of having to tackle the unknown is not new to me.
I know that what I seek is on the other side. While I feel melancholy at moving on from friends and from a job I have been a part of for more than two decades, I know that where I want to be is not on this side of that chasm.
I have said it before, and I will say it again. In order to grow, we must accept that success is not a guarantee and that it lies outside of our comfort zones.
So tomorrow when the restaurant closes, I will hug my co-workers, I will say farewell but not goodbye, and I will shake hands and pat backs.
And then I will step out not into the light of a complacent new beginning but the unknowable darkness of a further, more difficult goal.
And I think I will make friends there, too.