Transitions

Forceable. Planned. Inevitable. Welcomed. Happenstance. Happening.

Happening is key. Regardless of their quality, transitions happen. It is up to the individual how they choose to experience and process these transitions. A minor transition today of having to accept that this writing would be here and typed rather than in my own personal notebook that no one sees.

It was happening. With the choice between losing time but having the object I wanted, I sided with time this time, opting for typing rather than penmanship. These words tend to automatically come out less visceral and more elegant when typed. Different feeling. That said, it is always up to you how you choose to process a situation. I could have chosen to let myself melt down and waste time being disappointed at my mishap, but I chose to jump right in and start offering myself my words in typing. And it is feeling good.

I am in the midst of asking the same from myself regarding my extremely impending move. It has been hard to actually sit down and process this happening, as the last several days have been a swirl of events and guests and tying loose ends with classes and life maintenance. It is a testament to what a whirl-wind it really was that my subletter showed up today and I was surprised; I've been quoting both Monday and the 10th as her move-in date. I tried to let this whoops become a benefit, choosing to see what was to me her early arrival as an opportunity to get my room and objects buttoned down so that my mind could fly free. And so it goes.

Here I sit in my favorite coffee shop in Boulder. Amante on Baseline, full of clean lines and black, white and red. It has become a haven for me; I place where excellent scholarly and creative work has happened, a place to spend time with those dear to me, a place to contemplate and look out at an incredible view while I am at it. I am so happy this space has a place within my last full day here as a resident.

As a resident. I repeat: as a resident. I am finding myself consider again how 'nothing is absolute.' There are many who would argue me on this; 2 + 2 being 4 is absolute, right? I guess it depends on how you conceive of 'absolute.' For me, it seems that it is the idea that set-in-stone can be shattered. Your own perception is your own reality, so I am deciding that goodbyes to these people, places and sensibilities are not permanent. They are an acknowledgment of my life shifting and changing (which is really happening all the time), but they are not permanent. Perhaps I actually won't see Kara Turner, Mecca Madyun or any number of the wonderful people I have gained here again. Thinking and writing that immediately brings tears to my eyes.

I find myself trying to temper them into an amount I feel is right. It is not that I do not wish to acknowledge the salty, tart and sometimes burnt parts of transitions among the sweet; I do. I think it is very important to grieve. I also think it quite important to contextualize and consider the larger picture whenever I can, something challenging to me as a detail-oriented person.

I am simply trying to strike a balance between burnt and sweet as I take each somewhat surreal step through this transition. It's ok to feel sad, but ultimately, I wish to be able to encourage my perceptions toward these steps being ones that are fortunate to be fueled be all the additional knowledge and truth I've gathered as a result of having made the choice to come here and to eventually arrive to where I am today, taking these next steps.

Next implies sequential. I find myself channeling that dear friend Mecca, considering the idea that everything is spiraling and non-linear, moving in many directions all at once and not simply backward and forward. The present, past and future are not fixed locations in time. Just ask Dr. Who.

These people and places who have been my past and are currently my present are likely my future too, in mysterious and beautiful ways. Wouldn't I be selling myself and them and this and all short if I were to decide that these goodbyes have permanence? What does? It can be both scary and freeing to believe this, and I am not going to try and get it to be either. They will co-exist in a fragile balance, much like many other things in this life that are worth it.

So I will reach out and update my contact information with them via email and in very Erinn-like form, and will trust that the combination of the universe and appropriate hints of my own careful engineering will see each other into our lives again and back and around as needed and as they will be. Trust. A mix of influence (I am choosing not to say control) and trust. Swirled together like a spiral. Pulse. All the options outside of being right. Be.

This balance between being and influencing, presence and projecting was an interesting and brief conversation this weekend. It is perhaps life's biggest mystery. I am fascinated by it. So I will ask myself to both influence and trust that my experiences here will swirl around the spirals of my life and and all those who it overlaps in vibrant and ever-present ways. I am working to shift my transition away from 'Goodbye, Boulder,' and toward 'Thanks, Boulder, for becoming an influence in my life.'


I am learning how to not be discouraged about not being able to figure out an answer, and how to instead be encouraged by the journey along trying to answer a question whose form is always changing.