Picking Up the Pieces After Unwelcome Transitions

Nothing Gentle About the Process

Speaking of transitions, I am transitioning from professional organizing to focusing on my favorite work: Helping women during time of transition. I do this through coaching, spiritual direction and, of course, as you see here, writing.

Life is full of transitions. Every day we’re transitioning, but we often don’t pay attention to the changes because the changes are slow and subtle. Until one day you wake up, look in the mirror and ponder what the hell happened?

I was considering the look and feel of new business cards to help convey my mission. What could communicate transition at a glance? A butterfly? Fall leaves?

And then I burst out laughing. Transitions for me these past few years have been anything but a slow gentle progression from caterpillar to butterfly. A safe cocoon? (Insert laff track here.) Yeah. The home I once knew got ripped away too.

Fall leaves? Yeah, they’re gorgeous. But by the time they are a blaze of glory, they are days away from falling to the ground where they will enrich soil and support new growth. But after cancer treatment and then the past few months of other illness like flu and pneumonia, this feels a little triggering to me.

I know we are all dying a little every day but I’m just not ready to shuffle off this mortal coil yet. So much for the beautiful autumn leaves analogy.

I pass a pensive hand over my chin as I often do when thinking. Thankfully, there is no whisker to interrupt my reverie.

I never saw the transitions coming. They hit me suddenly. Uninvited. Bitter.

From trusting wife to betrayed.

From married to divorced.

From cancer free to cancer. (And thankfully, back to cancer free!)

From picturing a future of security and travel to the current reality of rebuilding a life at 58.

I didn’t see this shit coming. And I sure didn’t feel like I emerged as a beautiful butterfly taking flight into a new promised land. I don’t feel glorious color painting my life into a new mosaic.

And then it occurred to me.

An atomic bomb cloud.

Yep. That feels right. It is the line separating what once was and what is now. And there is no going back, no rewriting history.

A fucking bomb drops into your life.

You go from point A to point devastation.

Isn’t that how a lot of transitions REALLY happen? Sudden illness. Economic collapse. Betrayals. Job loss. And so on.

There’s nothing butterfly-ish when the rug’s been pulled out from under you.

When I view things through a spiritual/eternal perspective, I do see the beauty unfolding. I sense the power of letting go which opens up a deeper, more grace-filled space in my heart.

But when you’ve been gob smacked and such sudden change lands at your feet, it’s often all you can do just to breathe much less envision self-actualization.

Even as I type this, the wind is gusting and I can hear the (uninsured) roof on my park model tiny home riffling. I start laughing again at the picture my imagination spits out.

The roof is peeling off like a giant hand took a can opener to it. It too is transitioning, from roof to an airfoil.

That actually sounds sort of fun if I could fly it down to a nice sunny beach.

Bye bye, Felicia. That’s all she wrote.

Yup. An atomic bomb cloud. That’s more like it.

Will I adorn my new business cards with it? Not sure yet.

In the meantime, if you see a roof flying by, give me a wave.

Thanks so much for reading. You can find me around the internet at www.theresawinn.com, on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. If you’d like to support my writing in a small way, feel free to contribute to my wishlist.