Denouement

We don't take enough time to process the events that happen in our lives, moving too quickly onto the next thing, not allowing us the opportunity to reflect on our experiences.

I was watching The Vow, a documentary released on Netflix (Hulu?) a few years ago. The show spends a long time on the last episode, discussing the punishment of those orchestrating the cult and the thoughts and feelings of the various players involved. I pointed out to my partner, Carlos, that this seems to be demonstrating a concept in literature called the denouement. He asked, "Is that like an epilogue?" Not exactly.

An epilogue would be like words on a screen saying "Years later, the cult leader was found dead in his cell, and all the victims now live happily ever after with their families and friends." A denouement looks instead like when you've reached the end of your commute home in the car, and you are pulling into your home street and into the driveway. You are technically still on your commute being in your car, but all the events of note, like passing that traffic accident, picking up items from the store... those have all happened and now we are just wrapping everything up. Gathering one's thoughts and shifting the brain from "work" mode to "home" mode. Turning the page.

Have you ever gone through a graduation ceremony? There's a lot of pomp and circumstance, involving a lot of planning and preparation. It's a celebration which has its own relevance, but a lot of time is spent on the ceremony as well because it's a method of closing one chapter to prepare graduates for the next one. By allowing the time for graduates to reflect in a ritualized space and ceremony, one of the benefits is that the participants are able to tie up loose ends and process the experience they are graduating from.

But it doesn't have to be a big thing like a graduation that one can learn things from. Really any event that involves some sort of emotion, whether positive or negative, can provide some wisdom. One thing I have been guilty of is not allowing myself to celebrate my successes, and by doing so I have robbed myself of some of the richness of life. It's all part of the human experience.

A homework assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to spend two minutes journaling about something that happened that week that brought you joy. See what comes up!