The sense of an ending

I closed the café on November 2nd. That was the last day I made food and served it to customers.

Since then, I’ve been slowly clearing the café of everything I had filled it with over the course of the past two years and today, I finally brought out the last box and closed the door on what had been the adventure of my lifetime. 

I knew closing was the right thing to do for all sorts of reasons and yet closing that door and turning my back on that space was heart wrenching. I’d put so much time and energy and so much of my self into making that space mine, into making it Béile le Chéile, that there was a huge sense of loss in walking away. Every box I filled and carried to the car emptied that space of what I had made it and consigned it to the past, made it something I once did and no longer do, something I created that now no longer exists.

Although I am filled with relief and overcome by the sense of freedom involved in walking away from a venture that had taken over every waking hour of my life, I am still sad. Very sad.