Lost in transition

When we're a little lost, might we look to the future?

I'm just off the Monthly Coffee/Tea chat we have in the pond community. Always lifts me up.

Our discussion got me thinking about transitions. I think a lot about transitions. 

So many folk seem to be travelling through one at any given moment. They can be lonely, scary journeys; you can have a strong sense of being lost in transition. During our call, we talked about liminal places, those thresholds between one and another, where there can be fog and with it, uncertainty, fear, a lot of emotions.

I've been through a few transitions myself. Perhaps we're always travelling the path through some transition, one way or another. And, though it really isn't easy, I try to help myself by looking forward as much as possible, to the future. I don't always succeed. I do find myself longing for the past, wondering what friends I've not heard from are up to, what an easy life they're having in their secure jobs, lucky so-and-sos, feeling unloved because they don't call, sometimes forgetting that they too may be battling through their own journeys.

It can be a tough experience but if we keep our hearts pointed toward the horizon, my sense is that we can find our way through more readily than if we look back over our shoulder the whole time, yearning for what was, wondering if we've made the right decision. "Well, you're in it now," I often say to myself so accepting that 'what was' is gone and letting that go, even when you're not yet sure 'what will be', seems to be both difficult and necessary.

Having someone from the human or more than human world along with you, to talk to, who'll just listen, in that moment, or during that long, drawn out, foggy, liminal period, seems to be helpful. 

I seem to be listening a lot these days to people in transition, both young folk newly emerging into the world and finding their way, and, often, with folk in that interesting age between 48 and 52. Older people too, but there does seem to be a moment around those ages when we naturally look ahead and ponder. Perhaps we've reached what is likely the highest point in our careers or we realise that what remains of our working lives is less, time-wise, than that which has gone before. It seems to open questions in both our minds and hearts.

How you travel through your liminal, transitional moment is very much a personal journey. It can contain various degrees of joy, trauma, and all emotions in between. Keeping going, out toward the horizon, does seem to be important. It just might be how you get there.