Transition - 057
Hey friend,
Back to Life, Back to Reality
Since my mom's funeral on July 31st, through a week of Shiva in both Chicago and in NJ, and getting back to life, these 31 days have felt like 31 years.
Actually, rewind. I want to talk about that phrase that just came out:
"getting back to life."
It's how I would write about the transition out of caretaking, hospital visits, and active mourning.
But it's actually ironic.
As if "life" was just the current routine– work, making dinners, bedtime.
As if "life" was not what we were doing– sitting around with close friends and family, crying, laughing, storytelling, grieving, sharing meals, checking in on each other.
Maybe what's so hard about this time right now is that last month's experience was actually so full of life. So it can't feel like I'm "getting back to life."
It's like I'm leaving it for some alternate reality.
There's an emptiness and an absence of comfort that comes in the days and weeks following Shiva. And somehow, I suppose in time, all of this deep feeling fades. And it becomes "life" again.
Let's explore the idea of that Transition.
Why and when do we change? How do we get out of one phase– of being, feeling, and thinking– into another? What does "back to normal" even mean?
Let's go.
[Fade up music]
The Threshold
i remember
the first time in a store without a mask
since the pandemic
i was practically naked
the first
is a threshold
an entryway into a new space
after loss
crossing that edge
can be delicate unexpected heartbreaking
the first night at home alone
the first weekend without plans
the first dinner at home, made for one
you can't partially do the thing.
you can't wear half a mask
or cook only part of a meal
the act is complete in itself
in the face of loss
and any change really
these firsts
are some of the hardest acts we take
A step into a n e w s p a c e
Where we are alone.
Where who we are is somehow different.
Where the life I had before is not the same as it is in here.
But thresholds aren't all lonely.
The first time we laugh.
The first time we sleep through the night.
The first day without crying.
Over time,
these are the tiny wins that light our path towards resilience.
These are the thresholds we must cross
to find
our new selves.
Autobiographical Moments
If you consider the average life, many of us go through a life disruption about every 2 years.
We experience about 5-10 major upheavals (author Bruce Feiler calls these "lifequakes") – a significant loss, move, or change.
They completely shake our understanding of the world.
Nothing makes sense. Priorities change. Habits and routines don't work.
We begin to question everything.
It leads us to the idea that we don't know how to tell the stories of our life anymore.
In middle school, we learned that a transitional sentence connects two otherwise disjointed paragraphs or concepts.
The transition is needed to find the clear story.
So too, in our lives, we need a transition to find a cohesive narrative.
We need transitions to make sense of our lives.
Lifequakes are inconvenient. Painful. Deeply discomforting.
But they instigate a period of self-reflection.
The transition between what was and what will be is an occasion to not only sort through our feelings and find a new normal–
but maybe more importantly we can ask ourselves:
how do I use this transition time to make sense of the broken pieces of my life?
It's an opportunity to reimagine our life story.
A Portfolio, Not a Path.
The world of work is changing.
My mom, for example, worked 34 years for the same employer (Chicago Public Schools). When my grandma retired, she got a gold watch.
I'm certainly not doing that.
Most of my friends and colleagues aren't either.
Our careers are not linear.
We don't just continue to grow and rise and climb year after year (or decade). We move around, start over, try new things, pivot.
Our careers are a portfolio, not a path.
And our lives are the same.
We believe that we have phases of our life.
And that these lifequakes are just the path that connects one phase to another. It's temporary, right?
We expect these changes to be fast.
But they take more time than we want. Most say 4-5 years but almost 10% say the transitions are ongoing. If we go through these lifequakes 3-5x in our adulthood, and each one lasts 5 years or longer, that's 20+ years in a state of change.
We end up with a portfolio of experiences in transition.
The changes we face are not getting us from beginning to end, or even one experience to the next. They're not the inbetween to get us to a new phase or new normal.
Transition is not a connecting path to the next thing.
Transition IS our life.
Change IS the journey.
And we're in it.
Both of us.
Right now.
[fade to black]
Digital artwork part of "The Human Error Series" by Victoria Siemer
Thanks for spending your day today reading this. I know you could spend your time in lots of other, more entertaining ways. But I appreciate your attention and time you spend with me. Even like this. I'd love to hear your reflections and experiences related to transition.
Until the next one, with gratitude,
Jake