Managing Transitions (May 2022)

May is the season of transitions. Trees and flowers bloom. Birds are busy making baby birds. Humans are preparing for transitional rituals and milestones.

Kids are graduating from various levels of education, some officially moving to adulthood. My son has spent the last six years of his life at the same school and will be moving to a new building in the fall. He will ride the bus to school for the first time ever. His brother will be without him at school for the first time ever. Lots of firsts.

These transitions are so bittersweet. We simultaneously dread and celebrate them. They can make us proud, sad, worried, happy. It is human nature to dread change, but the outcome of these changes is often much brighter than we expect. On the other side of the transition, we fall in love with a new phase and start to dread leaving the very place we dreaded going in the first place.

It’s not easy to find the “sweet” in all transitions. Some of them are life’s biggest challenges, like losing a job or losing a loved one. I’m at the age where my friends are starting to lose their parents. I’m lucky to still have both of my parents and one grandparent in my life. My grandma, who will be eighty-seven this month, has decided to down size from her home and move into an apartment. She has lived one block from my parents for most of the last twenty years, which means I’ve had easy access to walk over for coffee and visit whenever I am in town, and she drops in to my parents’ house to observe chaos as my boys grow and destroy any aura of cleanliness my parents cultivate.

I was sad, and almost in a panic, when I heard she was moving to a different location. Her house still smells like the house she and Grandpa had when I was growing up. The kitchen table, the fake grapes, Grandpa’s carvings — they are a touchstone for me. I’m not that far from fifty, but I’m acting like a teenager; I don’t want my grandma to move because that will mean things won’t be the same forever for me. I realize this is a very selfish approach. It is a hard change for her, too, but it can be a good change. According to her, “I’m starting a new chapter in my life.” She will have new people, new activities, less stress. She will have my aunt and others readily available to assist as my now-retired parents take advantage of time to travel. She’ll have shuttle drivers and won’t have to worry about snakes in her yard or the basement flooding. Even though my initial reaction was dread, it’s good for her, and I whole-heartedly support what is best for her. Hearing how positive she is about the advantages of this move makes me sure it’s a good transition.

I suspect many parents with high school and college graduates are feeling the same way. There are certain times with the people we love we want to hold on to forever. I like this quote by Maggie Smith in her book Keep Moving: “Let change — even traumatic upheaval — remind you that anything is possible. When the dark cloud of chaos hangs over you, let possibility be the silver lining.” It’s the proverbial “one door closes and one door opens” mindset.

I’m going to expect the best and look for the possibilities on the other side of this season of transitions. Goodbye to the memories and hello to the possibilities. As Van Halen said, “Might as well jump!”

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