I completed the story last night. It was all by hand, so today I had to type it into the rest of the novel - what I had completed by the end of NaNoWriMo on Sunday 11/30 (56,001 words!).
I am very satisfied with the ending. I could not have planned it out as smooth as it was written. This has truly been a humbling and exhilarating and challenging experience. I have had to just open up to the creative flow, knowing that not everything is what I would think it could be and that editing will need to be done. (Big duh on the last one, right?!) On Sunday, as I was working on something else I had to do, I could not imagine how the novel would come together in anything that was not utter forced nonsense. And just now I finished typing up what I feel is a very appropriate and plausible end to the journey the story took me on - and I hope will take others on, once I have time to work out the issues and rawness.
What a wonderful experience November was.
And I wrote 59,199 words in 31 days!