TRANSITIONS ARE HARD

Dear Diary-

Why is it so damn hard to go home on Sunday?

No matter where I’m going, where I’ve been, or what time it is, I feel this dread wash over me. A combination of sadness, loss, impending doom. I just had a blast! I’ve got lots of time to decompress.

I’m not walking the green mile back home for pete’s sake!

In childhood we shuffled between homes every other Sunday. It was such a mixed bag of emotions but not ones that would seemingly go together.

It was grief of leaving my dad,

combined with excitement to see my mom,

combined with relief of being back in my home,

back to anger that our homes could not be the same.

It sucked! I didn’t know what to feel. This was the start of my Sunday woes.

Since having kids I’ve been thinking of transitions a lot.

People tend to frame it as big, major things like the age old “mid-life crisis” but once you have kids to appreciate the complexity and subtly of transitions.

For little kids, you know —any shift is a transition.

Moving from one activity to the next.

Preparing for meals.

Changing rooms.

Play time to nap time.

Getting in the car to getting out of the car.

All of these seem like minor tasks that just flow together but they are not. They require brains and bodies to go from one mode to another, and while it may seem common place, it’s exhausting.

 

I see this and feel this so hard when someone in my family is trying to talk to me while I’m texting. The conventional wisdom is in-person contact is more important than online or virtual contact and therefore I must stop my texting and attend to this person right in front of me.

When I’m trying to respond to a friend in need or a text that is hours old or answer a question from the chair of the PTA, maybe this logic doesn’t hold water (again I could go on about the theories and prioritize between physical and digital connection but that would take a book rather than an entry—side bar shout out to “Digital for Good” by, Richard Culatta).

For this train of thought, my brain has to shift gears from what I am trying to eloquently and clearly communicate via text, to the bid for connection in front of me which may be a request I have to consider, a question I’m not sure of the answer, or just a story I need to be present for.

This is a transition.

I guess I had no ending agenda in putting this on paper (screen) but to acknowledge that—

“Being a person is hard”—shout out for Kendra Adachi a.k.a The Lazy Genius for this amazing phrase.

It has helped me when I’m feeling frustrated or just plain “weird” to ask myself if this is a transition between two ‘states’. Spoiler alert, it usually is.

Knowing that and knowing that my brain is having to work extra hard, gives me permission to offer myself and my people grace.

Lord knows, humans need oodles and oodles of it!

Sincerely-

A Therapist who should know but doesn’t