Not feeling relieved, nor melancholy, but... just right.
So in September, I decided I wanted to end the "Adventure" series. My original intent was to write another four or five stories, to get the characters through 1989, because there's something specific concerning the racehorse thread that I wanted to happen toward the end of that year.
As I was writing the next story, I kept getting concerned that I might get inspired to do something else entirely -- not concerning "Adventure" and probably not fanfic -- and if such were to happen, then I would quit in the middle, so to speak, because I'd have to follow my bliss.
The inspiration to switch to something else hasn't happened, but I did start wondering how I could end the series more quickly. Then it occurred to me: the only reason I wanted to keep going all through 1989 was because of the racing plotline. If I got rid of that, then there was no reason to keep it going for another fictional year (which could mean writing for another real life year). Plus, while I already had quite a few racing scenes written for this next story, I wasn't enjoying them very much. That was the one thread that I often "jumped ahead" on, in terms of mentally thinking about what was going to happen. In short, I'd imagined Bri's career for, literally, three or four real life years now, so actually writing those scenes felt like tired news rather than anything creative.
Therefore, once it occurred to me that I could remove that whole thread for the current story, and then ending the serial with said story was suddenly do-able. And thus it was so.
My baby is all grown up now.