Julie, when reading your blog I thought of what an old friend of my mother’s would say “the only thing constant in life is change”.  I have found that to be true whether we embrace it or fight it.   I always say I can adjust to just about anything if you give me enough time.  We are creatures of habit and get comfortable with what we know, good, bad or indifferent.  My advice to people is to build as many positive relationships as possible so when life slaps you in the face you will have an abundance of people that care about you.  Of course those same friends are there when GOOD THINGS happen as well.

You will see a category of “Life’s Transitions” that I’ve added on the blog.  This is a collection of others’ stories of transition and change - what they have experienced and learned on their own journeys. 

I believe deep in my soul the value of what we know ourselves and also what we learn from other experiences.  Experts are important in our world, but so are the wounded healers that live in each of us. 

Please share your own story of transitions and change. 

I moved back to my hometown after living a pretty amazing 15 years away in many different places.  I left my hometown as sort of a misfit, definitely uncool and not sure of who I was.  I sailed off to the Navy for four years, through relationships and friendships with amazing people, through 13 cities in 9 years, through college, and the opportunities that followed and all of those things eventually led me back to my roots.  I think I needed to bring it full circle in a way…to go back to the place where my journey began. I wanted to be married here and to have my baby here. The Black Hills have always been special to me. To me this place has always felt like my favorite sweatshirt on a Saturday; a place of easy familiarity and comfort.  

So, here I am. I’ve got a wonderful husband, a beautiful baby, a wonderful home, and a challenging career. I’m pretty much living the dream, right?   I am living the dream. I am truly “soles of my feet” happy.  However, one thing baffles me.  Ok, there are way more things that baffle me, but I want to talk about this particular thing. It seems to me and in more than one instance and with more than one person….I have changed.  I have gone away and had all of these amazing experiences and really come into my own. I have become what I feel is a woman of strength, courage and determination. I have had diverse friends and lived in cities. I have sailed the ocean blue.  Yet, it would seem that after all of that and coming back here….sometimes I’m perceived as who I was when I left. 

Let me illustrate.  I went to a funeral recently for a high school friend’s mother.  I was actually in a pretty serious car accident with this girl in high school and therefore had great respect and affection for her mother.  Anyway, I felt compelled to attend. It was a lovely service.  I was in the church lobby after the service and there were 2 girls (I guess we’re ladies now) who I also went to school with.  I was nowhere near their level of cool in high school and never included in their reindeer games for certain. Anyway, one of the girls comes up to me and very snottily said “what’s your name?”…I stammered and answered her and told her my maiden name and that we went to the same high school, They both sort of looked at me and clearly did not remember me in the least.  In that moment, I was 17 again and uncool. I was insecure, not pretty enough to be alive, and self conscious. I was actually transformed into someone I didn’t recognize…instantly.  

I wish I could say that this is the only time this has happened to me. It isn’t.  I have experienced this very phenomenon with family members, and other people who essentially knew me and remember me as someone other than the person I am today.  What is this called? How do I keep being the me I am today when confronted with someone else’s rendition of a “me” they knew in another era of my life? This has everything to do with change and people’s perceptions.  Are perceptions reality? I’m not through the woods on this one yet and I would appreciate any comments. I’m very bothered by the whole experience at the funeral. I cried all the way home from that funeral and I don’t know why.

No one who knew me was surprised to see that I was more frightened than thrilled as the prospect of retirement.  I hate change! 

So what did I do? First I talked with a quiet counselor who told me it was just fine to grieve, as I was leaving a life I loved.  Then, I wrote!  I have always been a sporadic journaler, and this retirement passage got me writing again.  It became the way I could listen to myself and learn about myself.   I could celebrate and record the things about my working life that I loved.  I could mourn that this part of my life was going to be behind me.  I could be honest about my fears.  I could reassure myself over and over.  I could record my baby steps at trying new activities and meeting new people. Writing about what I was experiencing made me really notice that phases I was going through.  THANKS FOR YOUR JOURNAL!

Reading Naurine’s post made me think how very important humor is during times of transitions.  I think of her riding the bus 3 hours to get back to where they started. 

It seems as if you have at least 4 options - get mad, blame someone else, beat yourself up or just laugh and roll with the experience.

How very relevant!! Since December 1, my partner and I have been trying to adjust to Cuernavaca, Mexico. Talk about getting used to new space!    We are trying to decide if we should buy an apartment, so we go back and forth about whether we want to make a big jump and buy a place here.  I have not done what you suggest and create a comfortable space for me to be and work.  Really need to be more intentional about that.

We’ve also been doing something like the moving out in rings. We made a mistake on the first bus ride and ended up riding for 3 hours to get back to where we’d started. We were both totally exhausted. Since then we’ve done much better at getting on the right bus. That is a big step forward.

 I need to get ready to go to language class. Thanks again for being in my world — inspiring me and others with your ideas.

So last week was a bit of that “banana belt” that my husband promised me when convincing me to move to the Black Hills.  It was warm and sunny.  It almost felt like spring.  I found myself thinking that maybe winter was actually over.  Yes I know it is January, 7th in the upper Midwest.  So no, it wasn’t over.  But it got me thinking.

When Carol and I were developing our journal, Seasons of Change ( why yes of course you may purchase it - just go back to my home page and click on “journal”) we struggled with how to acknowledge that change is not neat, does not follow a straight line.  We wanted to include some exercises on how nonlinear the process of change is. 

The journal is arranged by seasons - it is linear in that way.  Autumn is followed by winter, which is followed by spring and summer.  There is definately a pattern and rhythm to change.  Transitions do follow that big pattern but there are anomalies along the way, which when we don’t expect them, they can throw us off balance.  Sometimes it feels like you take one step forward and two ( or twenty-two) steps back.

Just as you get a “spring-like” day in the middle of January, so will you experience change.  The Season of Quiet - Winter is a difficult time in transitions because this is the time when everything is so uncertain and confusing.  Most of us simply want to get out of it as fast as we can and so when that warm sunny January day arrives, it feels like, “WHEW-maybe this season is over”.   We may hope it is because it is hard, scary and uncomfortable to be in the Season of Quiet where nothing makes much sense.  But it is not.  So today it is cold and snowing and we’re back smack in the middle of winter.

But there is hope.  Spring always arrives. 

Yesterday it was sunny and warm (at least for the upper Midwest in January - 50).  I sat out on my deck and read the paper in the sunlight and could almost feel the energy flowing into my body. 

Ahhhhhhh - the breath of spring in the middle of winter.  A reprieve full of light and energy. 

Ok, I said that I had sent out some news releases a couple of weeks ago and didn’t know what would happen.  Well I guess you could say there is good news and bad news.  The good news is that I didn’t have to do any interviews and figure out what to say.  The bad news is that I did not do any interviews.  Nothing.  Zip.  Zero.  Zilch.

Back to the drawing board. 

There were times during transitioning when something like this would have almost defeated me.  In the journal, “Seasons of Change” Carol and I talk about how during the Season of Loss and Season of Quiet it is hard to try new things because you have such low energy.  The risk of new feels too great.  You aren’t able / willing to put yourself out there.  But in the Season of Discovery, you start to take some risks, try new things.

I must be in the Season of Discovery, so now I will figure out something else and try it.

Living in a new environment during the holidays has got me thinking about the traditions we carry with us in our lives. 

This year was different for my husband and me.  We did not spend the holidays with our families and our long time friends.  Instead we went to Jingle in the Jungle at Reptile Gardens and spent part of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with new friends.   (A special thanks to the families out here that adopted us during the holidays.  I will remember to pass that one on.)

One of the many lessons I learned from my mom is that there are always new and different ways to celebrate the holidays - that you need to stay flexible.  I thank her for that gift every year about this time.  No matter how hard we try we can’t carry all of the old traditions with us.  It is much less stressful if we prioritize, let go of some of the old and try some new things.

I would have made myself miserable out here this Christmas if I had tried to hold onto all the traditions we had in Minnesota.  It was not easy and I had to be very intentional about what I was going to let go of, but I made it and was pretty happy in the meantime.