Well, friends. Another week of roaming the mean streets on planet earth, done. And what a tall task it was. In addition to the weight of trauma/Trauma to be found in every nook and cranny of the world, there was the Superbowl, which required, among other things, figuring out what number LVIII translates into and watching Usher try to outdo Janet Jackson’s 2004 Superbowl wardrobe malfunction by ripping his shirts off. There was also mid-week’s gooey heart-shaped center, loaded as it was with cloying crush of conversation hearts, kitschy cards and that cherubic little ne’er-do-well of an archer.
Don’t let my kvetching fool you. I may sound like a cantankerous old trout, but I secretly kind of love swimming in the syrupy sentimentality of Valentine’s Day. And so, I did. I dove headlong into the surf of powderpuff pinks and rosy reds and floated languidly in the warm glow of my own heart space, where I also encountered…a few lumpy bits.
Lumpy bits? Indeed. I don’t know about you, but it’s feeling harder and harder to carry on in biz-as-yoozh mode when there are so many atrocities and injustices being perpetrated in plain view. And as I scan about for leaders to help make sense of it, I find only the deafening silence of complicity and the dissonance of gaslighting. This feels confusing and overwhelming, a grievous betrayal. The elephant is beyond the drawing flies stage and it’s becoming deadly noxious. My inner kid can’t figure out why so many seem not to notice. I see it and I feel it and my heart responds with lumps, like it’s breaking out in hives. So, I find myself frequently stopping, sighing, and trying to make space for it all, including space for myself to write with frivolity in these Substack posts.
[Speaking of Substack, this poem written by my friend @Lisa Jensen for her 100Poems Substack expresses the conflict of these times far better than the hash I’m making of it here. And P.S., I highly recommend the catharsis of poetry for getting through tough times.]
Additionally, Valentine’s Day got me to reminiscing, which morphed into a little spontaneous life review. And, truth be told (and told it shall be , right here), the past 30 years or so, give or take a decade, have held many losses. Not to mention no small amount of gains and a hell of a haul of changes. In fact, as I look back on it all, I’m pretty sure I’ve molted my proverbial skin more times than Madonna changed costumes in Evita. Hyperbole, you say, lifting an eyebrow? Yes, yes. I know. She changed costumes something like 85 times in that film.
But still. I’ve become something of an old hand at groundlessness. Without doing a gratuitous and ostentatious trauma dump, I’ll just say that it’s been…a lot. It’s included marriage, divorce, giving birth, deaths of friends and family, a gender transition, myriad health issues, multiple (and by that, I mean many) career changes and breakups, family estrangements, and moves. In fact, I’m still waiting to get the thank-you I know must be forthcoming from my therapists’ children. You know, the one for putting them through college.
Notwithstanding all the work I’ve done to metabolize this change, my subconscious still goes through periods of trying to sort it all out and orient me in space and time. For example, this past week I dreamt that I was in one of my previous homes, went out the front door to take a stroll in the old ‘hood, and when I returned, found nothing but gaping holes where my house and the neighboring houses had stood, with nary a soul in sight. Your basic postcard from Armageddon scene.
Now, some of the changes I mentioned were by choice. Something inside me could no longer stay furled tightly enough to stay put, and it was grow or go time. So, unfurl it did, eventually bursting through the dark soil of self into the sunlight of expansion. I cannot claim that this was always entirely conscious, nor that it was always well wrought. It rarely felt like a choice. Seldom did I embrace the change with open arms, a skip in my step, and a song in my heart. Dorothy I was not, sashaying merrily down the yellow brick road in search of the verdant gates of Emerald City. No, no.
More often, the rumblings of change-a-comin’ haven’t been obvious at first. No trembling ground or things falling from shelves. No floods or plagues of locusts. No, they’ve been subtle. Easy enough to overlook and deny for quiiiiite a while. Slowly I begin to realize I’m dreading interactions that used to be comfortable. Or I’m censoring myself, making myself small, or feeling unwell, depleted or cranky. In short, things that once seemed easeful or workable become a real bummer.
But regardless of whether the change is consciously sought and coming from a place of growth and expansion, or it seems to be happening in spite of us, it comes with loss. And with loss, comes grief. It’s an inconvenient truth, friends. People do not often change and grow at the same rate, nor in the same direction. This is nobody’s fault. Not a matter of right or wrong or one-upping. It just is.
So, as we walk, friends and family may not come along with us. Dorothy’s trio of companions on the way to Oz were somewhat of an anomaly. I’m thinking maybe beginner’s luck. (it seemed her first real encounter with personal growth, don’t you think?). This could be because they’re not ready to change, or because they’re afraid to change, or that they’re genuinely content where they are. In any case, we may walk alone toward the unknown future.
Then there’s the internal experience. Mine has usually been fraught with disagreement. Kind of like a session in the British House of Commons. While my essential self knows, on some deep level, that I must keep walking, other parts of me simply cannot fathom why I am walking away from all that is familiar and was, for a time, working. These same parts sometimes break free and run like hell back in the direction from whence I’ve come, hoping to make it back through the checkpoint without me noticing. These parts shrink from grief and cling to narratives that minimize, romanticize or fantasize the status quo. They’re not trying to be problematic or obstructionist, they’re just really, really afraid.
To further complicate things, these regression and secession maneuvers are often actively endorsed and/or reinforced by those closest to us. They don’t want us to change, because that will require some amount of change on their part, even if we’re not asking them to change.
If at last we manage to successfully navigate both the inner turmoil and the external reactions that spring up like fungus in a fall forest, we might reach a new plateau of growth. And we might look around and see that we appear quite alone on the endless steppe, save for a few long-haired goats who seem absolutely unperturbed by our entrance. This can be incredibly disconcerting. Terrifying, even. Worse still, our old life may still be visible, but unreachable. We may see our heretofore tribe doing their old things, but minus us.
Perhaps worst of all, condolences and bereavement support will not be offered to us for these growth-related losses as they likely would with a physical death. No, they will not. To others, we look whole and unscathed, but on the inside, our hearts are full of all the same lumps as though a beloved had shuffled off this mortal coil.
I wish to assure you, friends. This is, absolutely, positively, 100 percent normal. And it can feel nearly unbearable.
So, how do we get through such cruel times? Traverse the terror of the transitional tempest? Shift out of surviving into thriving? In my experience, this is best done one [fill in the increment that feels doable] at a time. One terrifically teensy little scintilla at a time. Of course, you could also rely on any number of things to anesthetize yourself through a transition. I’ve done that with some of the growth-related changes I’ve been through, patting myself on the back for sailing through the transition, only to find years later that I had merely buried the grief alive. And it can be a real horror flick when it emerges moldering from the grave like a zombie on the make.
We can also avail ourselves of the many, many supports, both seen and unseen, available to help. This may sound mysterious, but it’s really not. On the level of the unseen, the possibilities are limitless. I’ve personally relied on the concept of a creative power greater than myself, on loved ones who have transitioned to the great beyond, and on the power of my ancestral lines. This is your life, friends, and you get to believe in what makes sense for you. And In the realm of the “seen,” there are a wide array of supportive volunteers and professionals, including yours truly (click the button below).
As always, we’ve been talking here today about what’s truly an inside job. Inside in the sense that only you can change your life, but not necessarily a solo venture. If you’ve been on such journeys, I want to offer my heartfelt condolences for your losses, and heartiest congratulations on your growth. And if the journey awaits, I’m wishing you smooth, zombie-free travels and the wind at your back.
I love how you playfully give permission to feel absolutely everything, including feelings that seem at first to make no sense. The journey feels less lumpy when we talk about the bumps. Thank you for giving us all a hand to hold on our inside-but-not-alone journeys!
I will go back and re read later but for tonight let me just say you, my friend, are a freaking delight and I am so glad we met. I love reading your writing.