Sunday, April 6, 2014

Transitions are HARD

Sitting in my warm bed at 8am, rain pouring down and (happily, if I'm honest) inhibiting today's long run, I'm driven to reflect as obsessively as I have been recently - transitions, empty nesting, huge life change? It's all very hard. So much harder and in so many different ways than I thought it would be.

If your life were a movie montage, it would be the Rocky run through Philadelphia, or the hard push before the triumphant finish. It's the spice and sweat that adds depth to the sweet, sweet finish.

But in reality when you have to live through it, it's so confusing and there's no guarantee that you'll have any triumph at all at the end of the day.

Yeah, at first you have confidence that it'll happen.

I had so many plans for the things I was going to accomplish. High on running endorphins I was SURE these things were going to happen and I had endless energy for trying to move myself forward. A few setbacks, missing Ky, questioning myself - a long run, endorphins, a big rally! - more work, more setbacks, more missing Ky, more questioning myself.

After six months? This pattern gets really old. There are only so many rallies I have inside of me in any given time. I wish for a win - ANY kind of win - to get my creativity flowing and my confidence up.

It's such a different animal changing your life in your 40's than it is in your 20's. Man I used to love reinventing myself. Selling everything I owned and starting over was like molting into a butterfly with cool new patterns and a new home range. But I could do it over and over again, and each new life was an interesting adventure.

Things totally change when you're older. The stakes are higher. What seemed like a cool adventure now just looks flaky to everyone around you. You think about money a lot more. Retirement funds and tuition and the realities of spending years paying for an adventure are pretty well known and have created a lot of negative associations.

I feel, in a way, like this last reinvention should be my last one until I'm an old lady and my flakiness can be called "feisty" and people will marvel and my "moxie" and "spirit" instead of worrying about me and wondering when I'll grow up and settle down. I figure I have about 20 years before that will be a socially acceptable option for me.

So if I can get this next transition to work out, I hope I can enjoy it and its many fruits for a couple of decades, at least.


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