If you’ve ever been in transition, or if you’ve ever had something change on you where you didn’t have control over the change, you’ll know the uncentered feeling of getting used to new phases of life. And as someone who resisted change in my life for almost a decade, I have a few thoughts.
Rachael Herron recently interviewed me and we talked about my cross-country move in a way I hadn’t processed before, and I found myself acknowledging that I had been in one phase of my life that had ended, but I’d stayed stuck there because… well, because I really liked that phase of life.
I was a full-time writer, I had family who lived in town, I wasn’t working anywhere else (except coaching Strengths, which was fun), and I traveled to see friends often, but rarely for work. It was the gold rush of indie publishing. The market was wide open. I taught a quarterly WBF class for Margie Lawson.
I loved that phase. But that phase ended in 2018/19. And a new phase began, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it. I loved my little writer house in Bozeman with my cat and my occasional music gigs and teaching gigs.
Once the BFA became a bigger thing, though, I could no longer have the life I’d had. I hung on to it for another four years, even though I really should have moved pre-pandy. But I didn’t want to give up the feeling I’d had in that phase of life.
Yet I languished. And honestly, I should have moved in 2020, but the pandy wasn’t kind for that, and I had other things keeping me in Bozeman at the time.
So I want you to hear me when I say, I understand the grief and the frustration of not being able to return to a past phase of life and have the things I loved about that phase. But that phase isn’t coming back, even if I try to stay in it. Change happens. Transition happens. And while it has not been easy to go through, one of the things Rachael’s interview reminded me about today was that the phases transition, whether I want them to or not.
I can’t control everything.
But I also can’t step into a river that’s already flowed past. When change happens, I need to increase my resilience to deal with it, rather than sit in my little condo, wishing it wasn’t changing. That would have eventually killed me.
Also, this whole awareness is making me much more conscious of taking the joy and the happiness where I can find them. Even as hard as this transition has been, I wouldn’t ask for a do-over. I would make the same choice again. Because I know what’s on the other side of this transition is going to be a flowing river instead of a stagnant, leaky pond.
I want to encourage you, if you are dealing with changing phases, or with a loss of control, to find support. If you are waiting on making a change, think about whether you’re dealing with a change that actually has already happened (but you don’t want it to have happened, so you’re resisting taking the last step of the change).
As hard as the last 18 months have been, when I was on the drive to the airport this morning and realized I’ll be going back to Montana for the first time this summer since I left (I still haven’t been back), I thought to myself, “I’m grateful for change.” And then did a Positive Emotion Cycle.
When it’s over, let it be over…
Please get the support you need, and think about whether what’s keeping you in place is fear of change. Know that I feel that pain, and I wish you all the best. No matter what phase is behind you or in front.
– Becca