On ending things

Announcing a new beginning for the Extraordinary Routines newsletter.

“What we call the beginning is often the end,” wrote T S Eliot. “And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

There may be a new beginning in every ending, but that doesn’t mean the start will always reveal itself right away.

It was over a year ago that I reached a particular ending. I submitted my manuscript, and I knew in that moment it was also a conclusion for Extraordinary Routines, the labour of love that has held my attention for over half a decade.

It felt like a natural and neat ending—the insights, the lessons, the turning points in my own curiosity had all been poured into the pages of my book, I Didn’t Do The Thing Today.

And yet, I hesitated to properly acknowledge the end. To the keen observer it was obvious: I hadn’t sent a newsletter in months. I hadn’t planned a new season of the podcast. I hadn’t conducted a new interview for years. The writing was on the wall, but I didn’t want to read it aloud. Yet in letting things languish, I felt I hadn’t marked the end the way I think a labour of love deserves.

Sometimes endings jolt us, sometimes they find their own way, and sometimes things peter out without fanfare. But other times, we can postpone endings and the beginnings that follow to our own detriment. We delay having the breakup conversation, handing in the resignation letter, or declaring something is over.

Part of the hesitation may be because endings can be associated with failure—a marriage that ends is called a failed marriage. But why does the continuation of something have to be the determiner of its success? Whether it’s a relationship, a job, a project, if we keep doing something that we know has ended, it’s a recipe for half-heartedness, or eventually resentment and exhaustion. So where we can, where it’s possible, isn’t it better to leave things with love?

Something doesn’t have to last forever for it to be successful. Some things end because they’re finished. Some things end because we’re finished with them. Some things end because they just didn’t work out.

It’s not a failure to declare an ending, rather it can be an opportunity. As the writer Sarah Manguso put it, “Perfect happiness is the privilege of deciding when things end.”

In deciding to end Extraordinary Routines, I can see that the success of something doesn’t live in its continuation, or in the way it may have ended—even trying our best, some endings will be messy and imperfect. So success, I think, lives in the thing itself.

Everything we learn, we carry into each new beginning. Extraordinary Routines has taught me the importance of doing things just for the love of it, that things take time, and that you never know where things will end up.

And, so perhaps there are always two endings: the first when you know it’s the end, and the second when you’re finally ready for a new beginning.

Being ready to begin

Most of the time, we will face uncertainty in any new beginning. As Sarah Manugso aptly added, it might be perfect happiness to decide when things end, “but then you have to find a new happiness.”

Beginnings are always an act of discovery—but they don’t always feel like an active search. Often, if we begin by trying to find a new desire, a new relationship, a new career, a new happiness, we can set our sights too high or too broad and can be prematurely discouraged by the slightest misstep.

What I’ve learned over this year is that beginnings are allowed to be passive. In fact, sometimes when you don’t know what to do, the best thing is to do nothing.

So that’s what I’ve been doing—nothing. I didn’t know what the next project would be, so I stopped trying to force one. I didn’t know what the next book would be, so I stopped trying to write a proposal. But doing nothing isn’t really doing nothing—it’s the patient, slow work of allowing yourself to be in the empty space that follows an ending.

In not rushing to fill the space, you can discover what it is that might really fulfil you. As the philosopher Michael A Singer put it, “If you really want to see why you do things, then don’t do them and see what happens.”

What I found is that eventually, the next thing began to pester me. What was once simmering in the background became louder and louder: I just want to keep writing about things.

Once the start was revealed, I still found myself waiting for the perfect moment to begin. Months went by, and now it’s time to simply start by starting—and share the beginning with you!

Introducing On Things: a new Substack newsletter

Sometimes beginnings are simply reimaginings.

While Extraordinary Routines has concluded, the curiosity and accompanying newsletter will have a new start.

What this means is that I’m moving my writing here to Substack where I’ll continue to publish under a new umbrella title, On Things.

If you’re familiar with my musings, experiments, or the previous iterations of the newsletter, you can expect a similar style with On Things.

I will continue to grapple with questions around how we spend our days, as well as expand my focus to a whole manner of things we do, feel, and encounter in our exterior and interior lives.

Extraordinary Routines was a labour of love (that is, a self-funded project I did for the love of it) which meant it was irregular by nature—it was tethered to various fluctuations in my spare time and curiosity.

On Things will also be a labour of love, but moving to Substack will now allow support from my readers so I can attend to it with more regularity.

Some final things on endings and beginnings

Everything we love will go through various endings and beginnings, because everything we love continually changes. As one of my favourite writers Clarissa Pinkola Estés puts it:

“Love in its fullest form is a series of deaths and rebirths. We let go of one phase, one aspect of love, and enter another. Passion dies and is brought back. Pain is chased away and surfaces another time. To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many endings, and many, many beginnings—all in the same relationship.”

The comforting thing about this perpetual cycle is that just as nothing is permanent, endings don’t have to be either. We can pick things back up and greet them as something new, or renewed. We leave one place to discover another. Limerence fades in a relationship for the deepening of intimacy. One labour of love ending allows for another new to begin.

It’s been such an honour to be joined by so many of you over the years (some of you I know have been reading Extraordinary Routines since the very first interview!) and I hope you’ll find equal inspiration, comfort and curiosity in this new beginning.

Here’s to the new things we create in the endings,
Madeleine x