Thoughts on Transitions

I think that transitions may be the very hardest thing. There's plenty of talk about change being inevitable, and difficult - but it seems to me that once we're in something, it's surprising what we can adjust to, and how quickly. And even like what we thought we might not. I'm pretty sure it's the transition part, the part when you see the change coming but it's not there yet, that's by far the hardest.

I mean here I am, sitting in the middle of this huge transition in my life - both geographically and emotionally - with nothing else to do for a few more days except consciously transition . . . and I can't figure out what I'm supposed to be doing or thinking. Sometimes I think the job is to figure out a way to start making the shift happen gradually, while I'm still here, but I can't figure out how. It seems like no matter what I do, inevitably, I will be here until the moment that I am not, and then suddenly I won't be.

So if there's no beating around that actual moment when the change happens, what does transition mean? Is it about preparing yourself, reducing shock? I've been thinking a lot about how, as a teacher, transitions are also the hardest part of a class period, and doing it well basically means telling kids something new is about to happen as many times as possible before it actually does. "May I have your attention? We are going to clean up in 10 minutes. You have 10 minutes left to work before we clean up" . . . "Class? This is your 5 minute warning, in 5 minutes we are going to . . . " Like that. Maybe I could enlist someone to help me out with that, it's not like all my friends aren't teachers . . . "Meredith, you have 4 days left in New Orleans. In 4 days, you will get in your car and start driving west, so please make sure you are finished by then."

Or maybe transitioning is more about being in the present, or even looking backward, than looking ahead - which in some crucial ways entirely changes the point of the transition. If the point of the 5-Minute-Warning Model is to reduce emotional stress, then the point of the Linger -and-Look-Back Model is to bring on the full onslaught of nostalgia and heartbreak. To truly say goodbye, as best you can, before moving on. And I think I want that part too, but it's hard to self-inflict and hard to know where to start. The love that I have for this place and my people here, and the ways that I've grown and changed in the past 3 years, seem too big to try to collect all at once. I guess I'm just trying to open myself up to the bits and pieces of nostalgia that will float my way over the next 4 days, and do my best with those.

My last thought, for now (I don't know the rules of sharing these thoughts yet, have I already bored or confused anyone else who might read this?), is that transitions are also about deciding what to bring. This was true for me last week, in a very literal sense: I managed to reduce an apartments' worth of belongings to simply a Honda Civic's worth, which involved looking every thing I owned in the eye and deciding whether I would miss it if it were gone. Phew.

But now, even though all of my possessions fit neatly in the car, I'm still feel like I'm figuring out what to hold on to from my life in New Orleans. People, certainly; there are plenty of people that I will most definitely not be letting go of. But what about the ways I've changed, the person that I've become here? In some ways, I feel like I'm trying to move back in time and become a little less of an adult with this move. In other ways, it feels like this move is exactly about figuring out what kind of adult I want to be. I guess really, I'm attempting to go back in time for the things I forgot to bring with me into adulthood. Like maybe roommates, and leisure time, for starters. But I'd also like to spend some time thinking about what I'm bringing with me from my time in New Orleans, the stuff that doesn't take up any room in the backseat.

Thoughts on Offering Assistance

They told me this on my flight back to New Orleans:

"If you are sitting next to someone who requires assistance, put your mask on first. Then, offer assistance."

I've come back to this thought more than once in the week since, especially when the guilt of quitting starts to seep in. In fact, if my motivation for quitting could be summed up in one sentence, this may well be it. Thanks, ExpressJet.