It ends. It begins.

…the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.

She has but doesn’t possess,
acts but doesn’t expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.

tao te ching

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There comes a time when your children cease their role as major players in the story of your life and wander in to their own stories. For years, all your attention has been placed on this fascinating thread and then abruptly the thread is cut and they are relegated to inconsequential mentions in a holiday or a random memory flashback.

It’s likely that their role fades gradually, but our fascination with their subplots and themes is so all-encompassing we never notice their diminishing place and it seems more as if we turn a page and suddenly their names disappear from the text.

I suppose the most successful of us pick up the dangling ends of our own story arcs and rebuild them into a new and exciting narrative. But in that moment when you realize your children have rightfully taken up their place as their own heroes and heroines, the temptation to close our own book and follow theirs is overwhelming. It is a crossroads of mortality, the internal struggle between the pull of eternity and choosing to plant ourselves fully in the present and recapture our own spotlight, ignoring the fact that to the outside world we are merely fading divas.