I’ve always been a big fan of The Deadliest Catch. This show has been mentioned about in numerous blogs, especially when it comes to the leadership of the captains. While those men are quite admirable, and I know what it is like to be the daughter of the Skipper, it was the end of the Derby style in Season One that caught me. (If you can view it, episode 9 “The Clock’s Ticking,” can be run on Netflix)
The end of the Derby fishing season strikes each of the captains as an emotional blow. This type of fishing allowed for the boats to compete with each other for a piece of the overall crab quota. With it came glory, a race to bring in the most crab, and the adventure in getting a piece of the pie. In changing to a divided and assigned fishing approach, many boats were pushed out of business. Past performance dictated the division of the quota, and you could never do better. If you hadn’t kept up before, you would be out.
The End has always struck me as one of the hardest things I could ever do. Moving constantly my whole life meant a lot Ends. As one person could tell you, I avoid endings in search of new beginnings. This means that I would normally skirt around saying “good bye” and move on to the next thing. As a result, there is rarely closure.
Closure allows you to move on without baggage. When I was eleven, we had been living in a hotel for two months. I finally broke down one day, “I want to go home.” We didn’t have one. I hadn’t really worried about leaving the home before, had been so excited about the next one, and then realized in the interim that there was nothing of comfort.
The End is a change, something for which William Bridges would say you should allow yourself to mourn. You hear this often when it comes to break-ups, like the percentage of time you should wallow in proportion to the time you spent in the relationship. While there may not be an exact percentage for everything, the idea of mourning every End is healing. Mourn at the end of a job, an industry, a relationship, a school year, or the end of an era.
I will admit that with all the change through which I’ve been and the change for which I have sought, I rarely mourned the Ends. It often isn’t until many months later that it catches up with me, often on the tail of another change. A serious car accident a few years ago broke my emotional wall I had been holding up about feeling totally alone for the first time in my life, what I had previously celebrated as my first feeling of independence.
Spend time saying good-bye, giving yourself closure so that you can move on. The End requires strength, and confronting and mourning it will make you more successful when it comes to change. I work on that every day.
I hope you do as well. The End.
The views expressed in my blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.
Photo courtesy of dsc.discovery.com
