The Museum feeling of ending (and death)

In the last year I've faced a feeling that is relatively new to me but achingly hard to manage nonetheless. While it appeared it my life from time to time before, I've been hit increasingly hard by it as life moves on.

I call it the museum feeling when your relationship to someone or something ends and, while everything wonderful you shared is still there, it no longer lives or can grow further. Instead, that world you created together becomes a preserved museum of memory.

To give a video game example, an art form which I never expected to grow into the emotionally mature and moving stage it is reaching now, I felt the museum feeling when I completed the Witcher 3 - Wild Hunt. After 30 or so hours of challenging, engaging, human, morally uncertain and even funny adventures with a great cast of other characters, I finished the main story. It was moving and impressive to say the least. Since I was trying to play things the "right" way I had decided to complete the original game before heading into the extra content of the expansions. To facilitate this the game takes you from the end back to the castle where you and friends set out, except that it's empty. Their stories have finished and you are alone before you travel to the new areas for the expansions. The emptiness and loneliness I felt when I walked around the castle without my people was incredible. It ached so much and I was desperate to reconnect with the other characters and memories we'd made together.

In fact, I was so moved that after finishing the game I restarted it, intending to finish the expansions before the original part. It didn't happen, in large part because it's hard to find so much gaming time with small kids around but the intention was there :-)


The second great museum moment happened with Terry Pratchett. My sister and I are avid readers and between us we owned almost all of the Discworld novels. In fact, I recall there were more than a few disagreements over whether the books should be kept in her room or mine. This was a big deal as children and teenagers, even though our doors were immediately adjacent. Then, Terry Pratchett died in 2015 and nothing much happened to me. I was sad from a distance as it were.

Until later on when my sister sent me the last of the books he finished before his death, The Shepherd's Crown. It featured the death of a main character who'd been part of the series for decades (28 years by my estimation) and I couldn't help but wonder whether it somehow reflected the feelings of Terry knowing that he was approaching the end of his life. In any case, once I finished the book, a wave of emotion came over me as the museum feeling was in full force. The discworld, an incredible place I'd spent countless hours in over the previous twenty years suddenly felt closed off and preserved rather than alive. There would never be any new memories connected to it. We would never find out what happened next to the characters and inhabitants. I'd never again have that feeling of discovery when opening a Terry Pratchett novel. Instead I would be retreading old memories which, wonderful though they are, would lose some of the magic.


Finally, my father died just a few weeks ago as I write this. Far be it from me to try to encapsulate his life and impact on me in a blog post but, as you can imagine, he had a great role in shaping who I am today. I'm not too sad that he's gone for the most part or, to say it more clearly, I know it was time for him to go and that death is a part of life. In that sense I'm not sad, though I do miss him terribly at times. It catches me in certain moments day by day, usually in moments of relative mundanity. What I feel is the sense of museum like loss when I consider the places we shared experiences.

Our family had a huge get together in Norway to celebrate how people in different parts of the world were connected by our great grand parents and their many children (including my grandfather). Many generations came together and had a great time. Later, I was fortunate enough to join my father and his partner on a Hurtigruten cruise up the coast of Norway. It felt so nice to see where some of my family roots are from. Now, though, I imagine going back with my wife and children, but I fear that the museum feeling will dominate and that part of Norway might be forever tied to nostalgia and loss. Perhaps not and I'm just writing this while still close to the sense of loss. Who knows, but I get museum feeling from my father's passing in many ways.



If there's a conclusion I can draw from this feeling, I suspect it's something like the following. Death and ending are part of life, part of the circle of existence. The same day I heard a song that brought my dad's death to mind and tears to my eyes is the same day my friends welcomed their baby daughter into the world. You'll never escape death or ending except by refusing to engage meaningfully with anyone or anything. Endings bring about the "museum feeling" once the memories can no longer be created.

Treasure what is in your museums and feel free to visit them whenever you need to do so. Don't live there though. It's not healthy or the way to move forwards in life. Instead, put your time and energy into making new living, breathing places where you connect with the world and people around you. You'll always be losing something or someone as your life goes on so ensure you are bringing in new things to continue the living feeling

I wish you all the best as you face your museum feelings whenever and wherever they come to your life.

Pete