Transition
“Transitions are a time for reflection, and a time for looking forward.” - Roy Cooper
In the past two months, I have drafted over fifteen newsletters to share on my Substack. Each arrived with an initial spark of inspiration that quickly died out instead of building into a burning flame.
I planned to be more consistent with my writing this New Year. I even put pressure on myself by projecting all of my internal judgments onto the imaginary voices of my followers in my head. But each time I sat down, a gentle whisper inside of me said, “Not now. Don’t force it. Go towards what is warm.”
The last few years taught me the importance of putting down your creative work from time to time. The trust that it is for you is furthered only in the eventual return to the page.
Lately, what has been most warm has been evenings curled up with a good book or creating the things that are more alive in me. But most of all, it has been simply noticing all that is changing in my life and trying to go against my instincts to attempt to decipher where it all is headed or what it all means.
There is a freshwater pool in Austin called Barton Springs that is a staple of the community. It is the site of morning cold plunges in the Winter and a break from the oppressive heat in the Summer. As someone who feels most at home in water, it would seem like a natural fit for me as a part of my routine, but instead, I have only been there once.
I love the feeling of the ocean. It’s flowing water and waves. The ability to be within its wildness and, for a brief moment, if you time your jump right, to feel like you are a part of it.
I also love that, for the most part, I decide the depth at which I swim and whether my feet can touch the ground.
I have found that swimming in open water where my feet cannot touch the ground, like at Barton Springs, causes me to spend more time and effort focused on returning safely to “shore” than on enjoying the freedom of being untethered.
Historically, this is how I have viewed transitions in my life.
The discomfort of the unknown has caused my logical left-brained survival mode to kick into hyperdrive, leaving no room for noticing anything other than how to quickly and safely get to the other side.
I’ve often wondered if my adaptability was a product of my trauma. I have always been able to settle into new places without ever truly feeling the weight of the change. Whether it stemmed from actual physical moves or just work trips that lasted longer than a few days, some part of me has always kicked in and thought, “Okay, I guess I just live here now,” without regard to how drastic of a change it was.
But as I look back, I realize that more of the trauma response has been my overplanning at every turn that made it so that I never really had to integrate any disruption at all.
When I moved to Chicago, I was excited to take what I deemed “the greatest road trip of my life.” I couldn’t wait to experience the open road and reflect on my life. I planned to listen to inspiring books on tape and take in the scenery. Instead, I put the pedal to the metal as my cat shrieked from the backseat for the entirety of the two-day excursion.
Although it was at the height of the pandemic, my transition to the city was relatively smooth. This was partly because my roommate and I couldn’t really leave the house but more so because I had spent the previous months stress-planning every scenario on Google Maps.
Even before the lockdown, I spent my evenings before the move trying to figure out exactly how quickly I could get to a grocery store and what my top twenty gym options were. I was excited to finally move to the city that I had loved for so long, but I was more focused on how to control my surroundings so that nothing would catch me by surprise.
I lived so far into the future of my next step that when the time came to finally take it, the last thing I could do was be present and let it all sync in.
It wasn’t until a year or so later that it finally sank in that I did, in fact, live outside of New England for the first time in my life.
By then, I was already starting to plan my next possible step.
Although our lives are always in a state of transition, my current one feels more prominent than ever, as there is not an area of my life currently in some stage of flux.
My family is adapting to the loss of my mother less than a year ago and what that means for us moving forward.
My house is a little emptier without the animal I called my own for the past sixteen years.
My work life is inviting me to step into my worth and go out on a limb in ways I never have before.
My creative endeavors are asking me to step more firmly into them and take the next step in their growth.
Even when it comes to playing sports, a fixture of community in my life for the past decade, my body is asking me whether or not it is worth it to keep putting myself at risk after enduring so much stress and trauma.
And none of this even begins to share the transitions happening in society around me.
In response to all of the transitions in my life, I am learning to notice and trust that when it is time to take action, I will.
I don’t want to look back at this period of my life, as I have so many times before, and struggle to remember it because I wasn’t truly present for it.
In the moments when questions arise, I am trying to meet them with love. Although I know just how much a single step in a new direction can change the course of your life, I no longer want to allow resistance to determine how I experience it.
There is warmth in noticing and learning to embrace each present-day instead of trying to change the future.
I intend to write more frequently, but only when it is most alive in me, and I trust that the times when I hit send will be exactly as they are meant to be.
I am excited about all that is to come and the questions I am being asked now.
Here’s to learning how to swim in open water without the need to chart an immediate course back to safety.
With Love,
Clayton