The Graceful Exit

I came across the following bit of prose while attempting to rid myself of excess paper. I'm a little bit of a hoarder when it comes to the printed word;  I'm almost in need of an intervention. I didn't write the piece  but I've deemed it valuable enough to reprint here.  

There is a trick to the Graceful Exit.

It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over -- and let go.  

It means leaving what's  over without denying its validity or its past importance in our lives.

It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving on, rather than out.

It's hard to recognize that life isn't a holding action, but a process. It's hard to learn that we don't leave the best parts of ourselves behind. We own what we learned back there; the experiences are grafted onto our lives. And when we exit, we can take ourselves along -- quite gracefully.

Thank you Ellen Goodman (whoever you are)