Life is but a series of transitions.
I’ve experienced the transitions we all go through, from emergence from the womb through retirement and all the milestones along the way. My own critical transitions have shaped me and my approach to change.
Mourning Daddy
When I was 14 months old, my dad went back to sea after a long strike had kept him at home during my infancy. He took care of me as a baby sister came along when I was 10 months old. Who can guess what a pre-verbal child understands about the sudden absence of a beloved parent? My mother described an inconsolable, crying child who refused to eat. I must have experienced that loss as one would a death. Especially attached to my dad and throughout my childhood, I learned to live with his months-long absences.
Teenage upheaval
When I was 17, my mom had me arrested for “Beyond Parental Control” (a now repealed section of the CA Juvenile Code) for refusing to stop seeing a man five years my senior. At loggerheads after repeated incarcerations, I ended up a ward of the court. Luckily, I was taken in by foster parents who were young, cool hippies. They treated me like a young adult and gave me freedom to make and live with my mistakes. The cost of that rebellion was that my dream of a four-year college (I’d hoped for Stanford) was replaced by working full time while doing my BA and MBA at night.
Working years
After 26 years at the same company, I left when it was clear I was not going to break the glass ceiling. For the rest of my career, I got used to long-term contracts as well as full-time jobs. Each of those involved a transition, sometimes chosen, sometimes not.
Retirement and the big move
As I approached retirement, I could see my retirement income could not sustain my Marin County-sized mortgage. During COVID lockdown, I decided to relocate to secure my financial future. I sold my home and moved to the Kitsap Peninsula near Seattle where my new home in a beautiful neighborhood is mortgage free! People often marvel at what looked to others like a brave move but which I considered only practical.
What I have learned
My early experiences taught me a lot. I have always provided for myself and family, navigating change and transition with some angst, but with the secure belief that not all is ever lost. Daddy came back. I lost my home and family but landed in a great situation for my final high-school years. My dream of college on an ivy-covered campus evaporated, but I gained self-sufficiency and a well-established career. Through my trials, I have become resilient to the point when the last time I lost a job, I looked out of my home-office window, feeling a huge sense of relief and thought, “I have already won.”
Credit and Support
When I look at how I have traveled the long and winding road, (I grew up on Winding Way!) I realize how much support I received from a loving aunt and uncle, a feisty grandmother, a friend’s parent who was my confidant in my grade-school years, and those wonderful foster parents. Those early experiences left scars, but I’ve worked hard to heal and transform through 20+ years of Jungian Analysis, deep work at Learning as Leadership (similar to Landmark). Now I pursue my lifelong dream of self-actualization as a long-term practitioner of ITP. The leadership and consistency of my San Rafael ITP group was a tremendous support through the big move north.
Transitions are tough, but now I navigate them with relative ease and look forward to new and exciting changes ahead. Each change brings something new, often better, and never only worse. I trust in the universe and look forward to my silver and golden years and as “I wait in joyful hope” not for a savior but for that ultimate transition of consciousness that moves beyond this earthly plane.