All novels have an ending

Our life is a story intertwined with so many others, filled with endings that keep us alive, as authors and characters, even after our death.

For those of us who love reading and writing, it is not difficult to conceive life as a grand novel, as a story interwoven with many others that make up the sensitive fabric of our existence.

Dramas, comedies, and tragedies, short and long, dense and light, realistic, epic, and utopian, and above all, good, mediocre, and bad. All these novels form the narratives we tell ourselves to give some illusion of coherence to our own being… and to discover, by reading ourselves through our actions, whether our life has been worthwhile thus far.

We are the novel that began with those who conceived us when they named us as a possibility, and with whom we interacted from the womb.

Then, from our earliest babbling, we continue to write, read, and edit ourselves in coexistence until our last breath. Because we are that intricate narrative that persistently seeks meaning in the face of our existence as a project.

That’s how it is, even in the suggestive consciousness we possess that those who come after us, after our death, will arrogate themselves the authority to rewrite, without our consent, complete sections of our story, articulated in novel connections.

Whether this happens or not, I know we imagine it at some point, with the hope that if someone remembers us in their stories, we will have transcended, even if only in their dialogue with another, even if only for that extra moment.

The course of the narrative that shapes our personal script incorporates crises, discontinuities, and transitions that give vitality to our novel. These are moments where the expected and the desired are disappointed, giving way to confusion about what has happened and its “reasons,” about why we chose certain paths that brought us here, about what we want, and even temporary doubt about who we are.

Navigating that “barren zone” — as Mother Teresa called moments of profound change — is to walk alongside anxieties and anguishes that initially appear threatening to our existence but in which we will later discover indispensable companions in confronting what has been unleashed, what has been unraveled (because the word “novel” comes from Latin and means “ball of yarn”).

In those unavoidable moments of sudden change in the course of the known narrative, I have learned to find some milestones or pseudo-certainties that help me regulate these digesting anxieties of change.

They are a kind of guiding principles that I envision with the firmness of oars, as they provoke the water in its apparent lightness, awakening in it the dense resistance that allows us to move forward. It is that rowing that reflects the rewarding task of seeking meaning in a journey that depends primarily on our effort and directional decisions.

I identify at least four guiding principles that may resonate with you and your own experiences as a reader.

Firstly, there are vital and professional novels that leave an indelible mark on us. It is something I have learned to recognize and appreciate because it is not always the case with every experience. We live through insubstantial experiences, others that are significant, and others that are constitutive of our way of being in the world.

Secondly, just like when we start a new book, there are stories that it is healthy to discontinue in the early chapters when we realize that they don’t captivate us, that we don’t find ourselves in them, or that they are simply bad. Yes, because we learn to realize that this life is insufficient for all the possible good stories we can forge. Why linger on those that are not meant for us?

Thirdly, I always try to keep in mind that the appeal of the narrative we build together with others lies in each of its pages, in each of its paragraphs. Because when we are already thinking about the next chapter or anything else, we don’t realize that we have strayed from the story, and therefore, from ourselves. That is the moment to recommit and concentrate on our search or to leave it for a while until we once again feel the call of desire.

Lastly, novels of any genre derive their essence and gain value in the fact that they conclude, come to an end. Every vital and professional novel is experienced with the consciousness that it has an ending, regardless of its nature. Let us remember that occasionally contemplating the ending of our own story is a condition for savoring most of the pages we write (because expecting to savor every page would be too omnipotent).

That’s right, when a novel existentially moves us (that one, the one with the indelible mark), it must be read until its last page, with hungry intensity, leaving everything of ourselves in it, questioning again the why of the outcome it brings, and even playing with proposing a different one. Although its (co)author has already determined its conclusion, we want to appeal to our desires because we have already become protagonists of that work.

That’s how it is, and we know it: even long and revealing novels come to an end, leaving us with different flavors in our mouths and feelings in our souls. It is always up to us to gently close its back cover and bid it a farewell that allows us, little by little, to return to ourselves. To choose how to proceed.

Because only by leaving a story behind can we return to it renewed or start another one that renews us.

Will it be a memorable story, or will we tend to forget it? Will we feel the desire to relive it, or will our longing seek a different novel? Will there be a forthcoming work that captures our attention with the same fullness? Should we actively seek it, or should we be ready for when it appears?

These are open and uncertain endings, like all endings, while we are alive. We only have the certainty that we are the authors of memorable and forgettable stories, those of the one and only life we have.

Mariano Barusso | June 19, 2023 | Belgrano, Buenos Aires, Argentina | All rights reserved © 2306194634334