From Here...Where?

Brevort Lake

I’ve written about transitions before. I’ve had some rocky adjustments, as with anyone, they’re just included in living our lives. 

This latest transition in our government shot up warning flags for me. Seeing this new president as a leader feels like a threat to my safety and to those I love.

I ought to be pretty good at transitions. I taught first grade for over three decades. Every calendar year I had a new crew of children. Rarely was I able to pick a student to be in my class. There were new administrators, new school boards, new curriculums. I adjusted. It was a job I loved.

Each event in my children’s lives brought transition practice. I had to succeed power to them as they grew and developed. It was a never-ending evolution in my thinking. It started day one.

My ability to transition broadened. Well…until my husband, Harry died. This transition took years to navigate. No prior experience seemed to help me and at the time it was a huge stretch to trust others to help.

Each time I’ve had to start over whether in the classroom, with my family or in love, I’ve learned how to read new maps. Like restructuring something that’s been broken or lost. Not all the pieces fit anymore, some have to be ditched. Some prefer a twist or a turn to configure.

Each time I’m forced (by circumstances out of my control) to look at a transition staring at me in the face for answers, I have to let go on one side and look ahead to something different on the other. Often scary, definitely a challenge and even surprisingly exhilarating when I push past fears.

Map to Maine Via Canada

What I want to say is no matter how the election played out, how many times I got a new class full of kids, raising my children, losing a spouse to death or an end to a partnership, the only way out is into the unknown. But, I’m a person who likes to carry a flashlight.

Life simply plops me right smack down into new territory anyway. Flailing arms or fetal position does’t matter, life goes on.

“It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing by its own nature calamitous-even death is terrible only if we fear it.” - Epictetus

To be honest it’s not easy to propel myself. It often comes with “Umph” or “Grrrr” again and again. I may not accept a new administration or being alone, but I’ve learned to set aside the massive amount of emotion involved personally, to figure out where I am and where I want to be. 

It’s like I have to empty my box of crayons. 

I look at them, throw out the ones that are too broken, rip some paper off the worn-down ones, and put back in the box the colors I don’t want to use. I dedicate myself to a new picture. 

Well….not exactly a new picture. There’s never an instance where the paper is blank. A structure or design is already there. From childhood through adulthood there’s a record. It’s an exquisite picture. A chronological creation which includes rips, wrinkles and even black scribbles with a sharpie.

I don’t believe transitions define who I am. How I manage those transitions does. A new leader in the Oval Office doesn’t define me. An over-crowded classroom isn’t a photo of who I was as a teacher. Filling in the blank “widow” tells nothing about who I am. 

If someone wanted a focal point of who I am I’d have to laugh at them. I am a myriad of focal points. I am cold raindrops on my window. Raindrops on a window pane, that’s me. Those drops eventually evaporate and move into the air and new drops appear.

“We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.” 

-  Eleanor Roosevelt

“Don’t despair; despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don’t—-surrender to events with hope.”

 -Alain de Botton