There is a small, disheveled baby robin making her very first steps in my garden today. She looks a bit dazed and exhausted, her lovely yellow down all awry. I know exactly what she feels like. She looks like a lot of people I know right now. At almost every age, everyone seems to be on the cusp of a similar transition: taking their first steps into an uncertain and illegible new world. As I write this, a flock of birds flies overhead heading south to prepare for the winter. Like us, the birds are transitioning and so are my parents who are preparing to head south once again, to stay warm for the winter months. We are not finished with transitions.
At just shy of 55, okay 55 now that my birthday month is almost done, I feel poised between these two ends of the spectrum, the baby bird and the parie-ntals (as my daughter calls us). From this middle spot, I can observe my family hanging, in a seemingly collective cliff ritual, on the edge of change. We are all transitioning — simultaneously and quite unexpectedly — into our next chapters. My daughter is fiercely independent in the midst of her career doing quite well with her new puppy. My husband is adapting to something he resists calling retirement. My mother-in-law has just been transitioned into her new home, in an apartment in assisted living. My dad has just come out of recovering from a major surgery and doing fine now, fitted with his hearing aids and is suddenly complaining about the noise of he’s starting to hear. Not to mention my trio of good friends, one who lost a job, one who just started a new job, another who moved from Hawaii to South Carolina, and one who split from her partner.
Every one of this cross-generational group of family and friends is struggling to let go of what was (identity, community, connecting in a different way and competencies) to embrace what’s next (as yet unknown, undefined, and ambiguous). There is a mixture of fear (Who am I?) and excitement (I am SO ready for a change), confusion (What do I want?) and certainty (Time to move on).
There comes a time in jobs, life phases, or relationships where you know the chapter has come to its end. Knowing when it is time to end the chapter — and ending well to start anew — will become an increasingly valuable skill as lives lengthen and transitions become multiple across both personal and professional lives.
Ends can come from within, the result of boredom even exhaustion from major life shifts, land o layoffs, retirement, divorce, or other major life shifts. The close of a chapter, then it’s time to re-create. It’s not always an easy time, for anyone involved. It can take quite a lot of unproductive time, wondering around, figuring it out, or even at the end of the chapter, thinking whether it is good to end the chapter, or not, to stay or go. Good endings are the best way to build a new beginning. And it’s important to close out the chapter, tie any loose ends before you can have a clean slate with a good beginning.
In the new journey, which can take a few years, surround yourself with trusted supporters and friends and set a realistic timeline, a financial plan, and clearly get support from your partner or someone you love and loves you, if you have one. As you know Rome wasn’t built in a day and preparing for the next part of life requires more than updating your wardrobe. Focus on it, Invest time in it just like any 7-year project. Seriously, you gotta work for it! That’s how it works!
Remember, it is never too late to remove the baggage and fly.
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