I’ve always been a sucker for a happy ending. In fact I cannot remember one story that I have loved that didn’t have some kind of a happy ending. Of course there are marvelous books whose endings could never be called happy, but they don’t live on my shelves. The books that I own, that I read over and over again, all have some kind of happy at the end—the beginning of healing, a small consolation prize for the main character, or even just a line that indicates that the character will still be able to move on—“Tomorrow’s another day” and all that.
I don’t think I’m the only one. We all love a good “happily ever after.” So much, I think, that we’ve begun to look for them in our own lives. We’re all trying to get somewhere, to crest the hill from which point we can look out at the sunrise and smile, and the screen can fade neatly to black. Maybe that destination is a lifestyle you want (be it white picket fence and 2.5 kids, or the day you can retire and get an RV to travel the country). Maybe it’s that new job that you’ve had our eyes on for years. Maybe it’s when your book will be published or when you’ll finally meet The One. Maybe it’s just the end of the year and a fresh start on a new one. Whatever it may be, we’re all trying to get there, but when we do, often we find that there’s just another hill to climb after that.
But the thing is, a story never encompasses an entire life. What book have you ever read that began on the day a person was born and ended the day they died, leaving absolutely nothing out in between? What book contains all the falling over and bathroom breaks and sick days and staring at the ceiling that we do? Not to mention all the time we’re asleep (and not dreaming: just drooling into the pillow). If there were such a book, I guarantee no one would read it all the way through. It would come across as disjointed, distracting, and just dull.
No, every story has a point, or a moral, or a theme, and whatever is in the story is leading it to that destination. The happy ending doesn’t just happen; it was constructed by a biased author who picks and chooses what details will help get there. Trust me, I’ve been there—I spend weeks at a time trying to figure out which sentences and scenes lead to the ending I want.
So when the ending happens depends on what kind of story you’re telling. If you’re telling a fairy tale, the ending might be a wedding. If a tragedy, it might well end with your darkest moment, regardless of whether you ever get out of that darkness. If it’s a story about a journey, then you might have the ending standing beneath the waterfall roaring down from the rocks, or it might be when you’ve caught the stomach bug and miss out on a concert you were looking forward to, or it might end with you sinking back into your easy chair at home. (All of those things can and have happened on the same vacation.)
The point to this story (because this is a story, of a sort, and there is a point, to which I’ve carefully led you) is not to worry about whether or not you’ve reached your happy ending. There are many, many stories in every lifetime, and so at any given moment you are simultaneously living your happily ever after and waiting for the story to begin. And take it from a writer who hates nothing so much as the middle of a story: both of those positions are good places to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment