I’ve had a long, hard year, and my friends are supposed to be on my side. They’re my friends, and maybe they don’t approve of the choices I’m making but this is my life, and I’m the one who has to live it—win, lose, or draw. They’ve got their own lives, and they get to control those.

End of story.

But the next day, it’s another story. That night, I’m rummaging through my stationery drawer where I keep greeting cards and birthday cards, trying to find a “thinking of you” card for Kristine, when I come across a photo of Jessica as a baby.

It’s a photo of Jessica as a toddler with her daddy, and something inside my chest pinches, a hot, tight heat that goes all the way through me.

In the photo it’s summer, and Jessica is nearly sixteen months. She’s standing on her toes, trying to get close to her daddy, who is outside sitting in a patio chair. Her head’s tipped back, her bright blue gaze fixed on his face. Her expression’s rapt, with that intense devotion babies have for their parents.

My chest grows hot. It burns on the inside, burns to look at her looking at him with such eyes of love. His expression is male, more guarded, but I know Daniel, and he adores her just as much. In essence, despite the years between them, the difference in gender and time, his expression, his devotion, is the same.

The love affair we have with our children. The passion we have for our offspring. It’s as if you’re given the chance to do life over again, finally given that opportunity to benefit from all the lessons learned and mistakes made.

And that brings to mind life, which seems to be an endless series of beginnings and endings. I remember Kai’s statement that nothing lasts forever, that eventually everything ends, and for the first time this doesn’t sound bad. I can see a definite upside to endings. Yes, the marriage to Daniel is over, but so is the negativity. The trapped, frustrated Jackie gets to have new beginnings and a new outlook. I can try new approaches to life, learn new tricks, develop a new attitude.

Endings can also be good things.

It’s Wednesday, and I leave for Hawaii tomorrow. I can’t wait, absolutely can’t wait to grab my suitcase and jump on that plane, but I’ve last-minute work to do as well as a meeting on the Eastside in the home of potential new clients.

I run errands during the day, returning fabric samples, picking up new swatches, ordering a custom sofa, checking on curtains that are weeks late what with the client’s party next weekend.