Here I go. Turn the page.
If only life were as simple as a Bob Seger song.
Yes, transitions are often-fraught times. Change is far messier than we’d like, and slogging through that quagmire can be emotionally draining.
And yet, change is inevitable. It’s a part of our calendars, our customs, and of life itself.
So, why are we not better at dealing with it? Why, after all this time, can’t we just turn the page?
The answer is both exceedingly simple and profoundly complicated.
I despise moving.
There are few things that give me more anxiety than changing my home address. I’ve only done it a handful of times in my life. Yet, each time, the experience nauseates me.
It isn’t the process of finding a new place that stresses me out. It isn’t the prospect of having a new rent or mortgage payment I must meet each month, no questions asked.
No, what upsets me most are those days right around the move itself. Those days when the home I’m vacating becomes a staging area — a labyrinth of boxes, tape, and bubble wrap.
This setup, temporary as it might be, goes against dwelling fundamentals. Homes are not meant to be storage areas for piles of boxes. They’re designed to be lived in. And the items we keep there are meant to be used, not stowed away.
Of course, it’s impossible for most of us to uproot ourselves with a snap of our fingers. Packing, lifting, unpacking — that all takes time and coordination. So, this awkward transition period is a force of circumstance.
But that doesn’t mean I like it. As I stumble through my soon-to-be-former home, looking amongst the boxes for a toothbrush and a change of clothes, I’m as miserable as a cat in a monsoon.
Perhaps someday, I won’t look on moving day with a sense of doom. Perhaps someday, I’ll even look forward to it.
But it will take a major shift to get me there.
I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.
The closing lines of William Ernest Henley’s Invictusare iconic. And for me, they’re a rallying cry.
For I am a control enthusiast. I believe in things being just so. I demand them to be just so.
I do all I can to stay at the helm. To steer my actions and emotions in the most structured of ways.
And yet, I realize that all this preparation is futile. For we live on a perpetually spinning sphere. Things are always in a state of flux. Even in areas we consider to be steady.
Consider school. Teachers, blackboards, backpacks, desks — it all dominates much of our early existence. It seems so monotonous at first, a model of routine and consistency.
And yet, school is full of transition. With every summer comes another step up the ladder, and another set of adventures and challenges. The pattern repeats itself until our schooling is done.
Our adult adventures are also warped by the forces of time. As we progress through our careers, we pick up bushels of experience. We don’t exit the workforce the same person we were when we entered.
As our own goalposts move, so do the mile markers around us. Our favorite athletes retire. Cutting-edge fashion fades into obscurity. Music genres get the dreaded vintage label.
We deftly steer through all this chaos. So deftly, in fact, that we sometimes forget such chaos is even unfolding. With so much in motion, keeping our eyes on what’s ahead becomes the mission. And such tunnel vision gives us the illusion of control.
But then comes that moment that grabs our attention. That fork in the road that we see coming a mile ahead. That transition we can’t blissfully ignore.
It might be a graduation. Or a wedding. Or the dawn of parenthood.
Heck, it might even be a move to a new home.
When we see the inflection point — when the change becomes real — we fall apart.
What’s going on here?
Well, I think there are two elements at play.
For one thing, transitions are control voids. We don’t have agency over our environment. Instead, it has agency over us.
Furthermore, transitions expose our vulnerability. They show the world the soft spots in our armor. And they rudely remind us of where those gaps lie.
A tailspin into vulnerability is our greatest nightmare, playing out in real life. No wonder transitions cause so many of us so much distress.
As I write this, we are in the midst of a great transition.
A changing of the guard at the highest office in the land.
Such a shift happens every four or eight years. And it’s always an anxious time.
But this transition feels particularly tense.
Not because it comes during a deadly pandemic or a crushing recession. But because it comes in the shadow of an insurrection.
Yes, the new President of the United States has just been inaugurated at what is effectively a crime scene. He has taken oath to defend the Constitution in the spot where rioters attempted a coup of the government just two weeks earlier. A riot that emerged in support of the outgoing President.
Such occurrences seem plucked from the pages of a dystopian novel or the streets of a far-off republic. But they have happened right here in America.
And now, in their wake, the anxiety is off the charts. The sense of vulnerability has hardly ever been greater. Dread has the brightest stage imaginable.
Yes, it seems bleak. But what if we flipped the script?
What if we approached a moment like this with hope? What if we traded guardedness for optimism? What if we believed in the good ahead of us, instead of the horror behind us?
Such thinking might seem foolhardy — reckless even — given all that’s happened. But that foolhardiness just might be what we need to thrive in this moment.
So, let us put on a brave face. Let us stand up tall. And let us face the winds of change with conviction and resolve.
Turning the page is inevitable. How we handle it up to us.