For those who speak of ‘happy endings’
Please don’t.
Stop.
For those who speak of ‘the one’
Please don’t.
Stop.
For those (of us) who have lost our ‘happy endings’
Have lost ‘the one’
How do we continue?
How do we care?
How do we live?
We don’t.
Instead, we summon the satisfactory.
Banal. Predictable. Boring. Often ridiculous.
Saturated with hope of one last great romance.
Why hope?
Without it, we die.
That’s a lie.
We are dead already.
This is the ending.
Our middles are exhausted.
We are the one.
The only one.
At the end.
Tara Brabazon is the Professor of Cultural Studies at Flinders University. Her previous roles have included Dean, Head of School and Head of Department. She has published 22 books, 12 audiobooks and over 350 refereed articles and book chapters. Tara’s two most recent books are How to embrace academic failure, and Ten drafts to complete your PhD. She is a writer for the Times Higher Education, and creates podcasts and vlogs. Tara has won six teaching awards, having worked in ten universities in four countries. In 2019, she was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia for her contribution to higher education.
