New Year and Transitions…

Another year parceled with a bow, packed off and sent away into the annals of memory. How will you remember 2023?

I pause and think. A single word pops up. Transitions.

For me, it’s been a year of transitions - of packing a kid and sending her away to the other end of the country. Excited for new beginnings for her, figuring out why it feels like a gaping vacuum in my insides.

It’s been about allowing myself to slow down, to take stock of a few things, questioning a few others, at times evaluating, of approving and disapproving of choices. Ahem, at times approving and disapproving the very same choice at different movements. Only to realize the futility of engaging in that process.  

For all that remains is the transition. And even if I feel it more now, that’s all we’ve been doing, year after year, moment after moment.  

Perhaps, from where I stand right now, I can see the canvas of the past with a little more clarity. This canvas is bigger than it was before, it has more hues and shades of understanding. Events stand there now not simply as events, but with explanations of why they occurred in the first place. Opportunities, missed opportunities may be accompanied by personal traits, family histories, circumstances, life situations and all the things in between, that led to them.

The mosaic fills in. The colors saturate, the hues get brighter, at times the sensory overload feels like too much. Again, I question the purpose of this process.

For all that remains is the transition. And even if I feel it more now, that’s all we’ve been doing, year after year, moment after moment.  

I have spent moments this past year, wondering about paths and possibilities, new directions, and activities. I have been both optimistic and pessimistic, excited and overwhelmed. At times, this process has ended with me simply vegging in front of the TV, with or without junk food.  Again, I question the purpose of this process.

For all that remains is the transition. And even if I feel it more now, that’s all we’ve been doing, year after year, moment after moment.  

Transitions are good, transitions are challenging, transitions are needed. Perhaps in my youth, I was simply able to straddle the transition and keep running. They seem to have youth and energy and lightness, apprehension certainly, but a certain excitement, one that infuses vitality and a certain welcoming of change.

But even if I may no longer have the vitality and lightness of the transitions of youth, I have an awareness of their being and the necessity of their being. Of what it does to us and how it affects our lives.

Not just my life, I think of others in my life. I spot the transitions in their lives. I am aware of how they are dealing, coping, adapting, learning to be, with these transitions. I relate to them, I learn from them.

For all that remains is the transition. And even if I feel it more now, that’s all we’ve been doing, year after year, moment after moment.  

Perhaps, this awareness of transitions is our strength as we age. And it goes to show why this single word popped up this year, and not in the years before.

Happy New Year my beautiful friends! Wishing you love and light!