Starting over is hard. Whether it’s a relocation, a career change, a reconciliation or some other life transition, we operate based on predictability and patterns, and when one of those big curve balls heads our way, we aren’t always sure how to react. For many, January is a month of fresh starts but usually, it is driven by our own initiative. Except when it isn’t.
Our little household has experienced some of that good old-fashioned upheaval for 2018, both myself and the hubs. Changes in work for both of us – for me, parting ways with a long-time freelance client unexpectedly (though amicably) as they head in a new direction and for hubs, a change of workplace scenery – have put us both to the test. On occasion, it’s put each of us in a funk, sometimes a stupor, but I’m finding that we are made of some pretty tough stuff when we pool our faith in each other. But like anyone would, we find ourselves caught up in that trap of looking ahead to income streams, bills to pay and the missing joys and security steady work offers and pose the really tough questions of ourselves like… how resilient are we? How inventive and diligent? And can we re-frame our perspective to find the waves of positive in what feels like a rocky sea of negative?
I’m a little better at the latter skill than the hubs, and he would be the first to agree, but we’re both moving forward. Because that is what you do in life. I have said it before to friends and blogged about it numerous times. Every bad turn of events has always…ALWAYS… led me to a very good turn of events. It may have taken some time and missteps in between, but a lot was learned every time. My divorce at the very green age of 23 led me to crossing paths with my hubs at the age of 24. Having to accept a job I knew would turn out to be ‘job from hell’ for three months only to be hired by someone I secretly call my career guardian angel for my favorite job ever at 35. Learning I had one chronic condition at age 45, a potentially life threatening condition at 46 and yet another disease-for-life at age 47 but charging ahead as I approach 48 hellbent on beating them all. (By the way, I am officially grandfathering myself from the year 2018, as I have no more spots left on my disease dance card.)
Earlier this month, we needed to make room on a wall in our house to hang a very thoughtful anniversary gift from our son and daughter-in-law, so I took down this little, simple light-wood framed sign with a hopeful message about new beginnings. I knew I would relocate it somewhere. I had bought it for my apartment after I separated from my first husband nearly 25 years ago. It doesn’t hold any significant monetary value but I liked the message and wanted to hang it up in our current home when we moved in 14 years ago. I ended up relocating this picture into the laundry room just off the garage, so that as we head to work every day, my husband and I see it. I find it ironic that I moved that sign just days before one of the uninvited workplace changes arrived unannounced. I still look to that sign for some hope that whatever new work lies on my horizon or how the professional landscape changes for us both, we’ll be alright. It will be yet another ‘new beginning.’ And that’s okay.
My hubs and I may not have expected 2018 to start out the way it has but as with any big personal or household-changing event, these changes have led to important discussions about life and what we want out of it with the work we do and with whom we choose to spend our time and interact. What are we looking for? What makes us want to get out of bed every morning? Many of us just keep on doing what we always do because we are on a daily loop and we follow the schedule – up for work, off to work, home to eat and watch TV or take part in other activities and then to bed, only to wake up and start the loop all over again. And then one day, something in the loop gets changed and whoops. There’s no loop anymore. That is, you have the ability to modify the loop and build something like it again or maybe create something else totally different.
Are you circulating in a loop every day? Or maybe like our little family, something hopped into your perfectly timed double dutch hop and tangled your feet in the jump rope? Whatever may be the case, I hope you keep your mind and heart open to all of the options that a new landscape may present to you. Sometimes all of them aren’t clearly visible until you strip away the past and examine these new set of circumstances to help figure out what are the right next steps for you. We’re trying to do that and keep plugging along every day. Don’t let your past fool you into thinking there’s only one way to your future. You’ve always got choices. You must give yourself a proper chance to see them all.
Thanks for reading. ~ Chris K.
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