The End of a Thing is Better than its Beginning

Today is my last day at The Associated Press. I also said goodbye to important parts of my childhood, and I'm onto the next portal.

This month, I’ve been reading a lot of horoscopes and I’ve been talking to God a LOT about what’s next for me. The constant theme was to embrace the end of a thing, accept that portals close and it’s for the better. But endings aren’t something I’ve always been fond of. In fact, I think the majority of us spend time thinking a LOT about the possibility of something good ending, instead of sitting in the good of what is in front of us now.

I’ve spent the last few years doing such. Like when I got into a relationship with my current partner, I was always like “damn, what if we break up?” And whenever I would get a new job, I would be like, “damn, what if I get laid off?”

And I ALWAYS used to despise when I would grieve the end of a thing, and someone would tell me that there’s something better on the other side. Because I didn’t always believe that to be true.

If you’ve been reading my Substack, you’ll know that today, Sept. 19, 2025 is my last day at The Associated Press. Coincidentally, it’s also the sixth anniversary of my mother’s death from breast cancer. When I say that out loud, it sounds like a collision of grief: one of the hardest days of my life repeating itself on the same day I leave a job that is supposed to be the pinnacle of my dreams.

But honestly, I’ve been looking at endings so differently. I don’t feel like something is ending. I feel like I just completed something.

In numerology and spiritual practice, the number 9 represents completion, though not finality – more like the end of one cycle so you can begin the next journey.

This is how I know that endings can absolutely be divine. On September 9, 2025 (9/9/2025 with 2+0+2+5 = 9, so 9/9/9), I closed the door on my childhood home. This is the house that I’ve lived in since I was a baby, and getting rid of it was a big part of the grief of losing my mom.

I remember walking in the house on Tuesday, sitting in my bedroom and crying. It was the first time I had ever seen that room so empty – I remember my crib being in that room when I was a baby, and crying for my mom when I woke up. I remember the set of twin beds that I shared with my stepsister who came over every other weekend, creating some of my favorite childhood memories. I also remember the bunk beds I got as a teenager because my grandmother and my great aunt needed my twin beds.

But I had never seen the room empty.

I sat in the middle of this room and mourned every version of myself. Baby Kenya. Kenya the budding writer. Kenya who dreamed of having a talk show like Oprah. The Kenya who scrolled on Twitter and learned about what happened to Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown in this room. This room developed the Kenya who wanted to work at a place like The Associated Press. And she did it, knowing her mother is smiling down on her in heaven. She knew I could do it.

And both of these portals shut at once. The physical portal that is my childhood home is no longer mine, and I completed the highest stage of my childhood dream. Like … I really worked at the place that created the AP Stylebook. And I wrote about Black people in that place!

It feels like God is saying that I don’t need these childhood anchors anymore. I’ve carried them as far as they can take me. Now, it’s time for new dreams that belong to the woman I’ve become. I’ve become a woman who knows freedom, who knows love and is determined to build her own foundation.

These endings are not losses. They are divinely timed and sacred completions.

“Better is the end of a thing than its beginning.” – Ecclesiastes 7:8.