Transitions Periods: Not Fucking Easy

I’m up late.

Really late.

I’ve opened my last bottle of wine.

I’ve grabbed my bag of truffles.

It’s after midnight.

I’m up late.

Why?

Because I’m forty years old, and I’m transitioning to a completely new phase of my life. I’m leaving behind old and welcoming in new, and it is mostly lovely and glorious and amazing and uplifting.

And it’s sometimes scary and painful and anxiety ridden and awful.

I usually sleep like a baby, but tonight I tossed and turned until I finally had to get up and do the things that instantly make me feel better: red wine, chocolate, and writing. Catharsis.

Transition periods are never easy, and this one is huge.

Big Difference

I was just asked the other night at my women’s circle what I was like before I entered this new phase of life a little over a year ago. She didn’t know me then.

“Like this.” I said. “I was like this. Except I fought a lot more.”

A lot of people who knew me before I turned 39 and began the slow and steady work of upending every single aspect of my life expected to find me dramatically different after not having seen me in person for a while.

Then, they find, to their the surprise, that I’m still Shanna. 

Likewise, people who didn’t know me before, the awesome friends I have made in the last year, can’t imagine a Shanna different from the one before them, advocating self love and a judgment free existence.

And in many ways, I am still the same me. I have the same shock value sense of humor. I still laugh out loud with my head thrown back. I still believe that Black Lives Matter, that love is love, that all people deserve to have their basic needs met. I am still an advocate for total equality.

But whereas before I would go out into the world and seek people to argue with, “wrong minded” people who I could disagree with in the hopes I could reason with them, logic them to death, fight the good fight of social justice and win, now I go out into the world and seek more people to love, I look for new ways to love old friends and new friends to love in big and small ways. I am free of anger and self righteousness, free of regret and shame, free of fear for and of the world. I have found a freedom I didn’t know was possible simply by letting go of so much that weighed me down.

The Upside of the Transition

The glory of it all is that I am a more patient, more open mother, even more willing to simply be a guide than I was before, and I was already pretty damn open. My marriage is stronger than ever. I look for ways to find compassion for my husband. I put his shoes on my feet and breathe his breathe when I used to just bitch and pick and pull him apart for not living up to my every single expectation, so angry that he wasn’t as perfect as I was.

I have found incredible creative outlets through my writing, both for myself and for others. I have met amazing clients who pay me to do rewarding work. One year ago I found and took one job for a man who ran a survivalist website and paid me two cents a word to write about things like the best socks for hunting and the best underwear for guys with big thighs.

Two days ago I got to write a brand story for a church based in love and faith that reaches out to everyone in its community without shame or criticism to help them live their best life through God’s love. The work came straight from my heart, took me about an hour, and I got paid $75.

Best of all, my clients are my friends.

I can now say, without any reservations, that I am a freelance writer.

Amazing.

It has all been amazing.

I have finally, after forty years of life and more than twenty years as an adult living on my own and taking care of myself that I have a damaged relationship with both food and finances. This has been a big step for me. I have always hidden my two crappiest relationships, handed down to me through generations of women just barely getting by financially and turning to food to remedy all ills.

I’m still struggling to tear down old habits and rebuild new ones from scratch, but I do have confidence that I’ll get there. Because I want to, and I always get what I want.

There are just so many positives to my transition.

The Dark Side of the Transition

Damn it. There’s just gotta be a dark side, huh?

Yes. There does. This too, I have come to terms with. We simply cannot have light without dark. There will always be the shitty parts that let you know where you don’t want to go. The real work here is to recognize the shit, see it for what it is, something you don’t want, and turn away.

And mostly, I’m good at this.

I can talk myself, run myself, sleep myself, and yoga myself out of the crazy negative thoughts swirling in my head.

“What if I never do better than this?” “What if it’s all a fluke, and I’ve only been pretending to be a great writer?” “What if I’m not good enough to ever give speeches and step on a stage with a microphone?” “What if I have done all this and I let everyone down?”

Yep, even I get the crazy talk in my head.

And yes, most of the time, I, Ms. I Can Do Anything, just say “oh don’t be stupid” and I move on.

But sometimes it all gets so overwhelming that I can’t sleep, I can’t soothe myself, and I have to come out to my desk and write it all down.

Why It Gets Dark

I’ve come to realize that the real dark times come when I’ve had too many weeks of not taking care of myself. I’m at the tail end of a six week downward spiral, and even though I’m coming out of it now because I finally recognize what I did to get myself into it (more on that in my next piece on “asking for help!”), the vibration is still playing out in my life.

And once an energetic vibration gets a hold of you, because you let it get too far, you enter a cycle of sorts. The cycle of bad relationships, the cycle of lack, the cycle of negativity, the cycle of worry. It could be anything.

Much worse than all of the regular crazy talk in my head is the single thought “what if I never figure it out?”

Essentially, what if I never get out of this transition? What if I never break this cycle, and it plays out endlessly until I die?

What if I never figure it out?

And this is why writing is so cathartic. Because even as I sit here writing these dark and worrying questions that keep me up at night, looking at them written out on the screen before me turn them into a physical boogey man I can confront and let go of.

I know much better than this. I know that the worry I have is all an illusion. I know that if it gets really dark and I can’t find a positive way out that I will create some sort of explosion that will provide me with the relief I needed all along. The explosion will be temporarily painful but something I will be grateful for in the long run.

And this is the benefit of getting older and wiser. I can look back at how things have always worked out for me in the past.

I ran away from home at 15 after a physical fight with my stepdad. I got myself fired from the corporate management job I hated. I cheated on my first husband to break myself out of the prison of a loveless marriage. I had a horrible breakup with a deeply romantic and obviously bad for me relationship. Explosions explosions explosions.

But with time and wisdom comes recognition and self awareness, and along with all of those come the tools.

Transitional Toolbox

Now, I have tools to walk myself out of the cycle before it gets so bad that everything explodes. Now I have children and a husband to think about. Now I would prefer not to have an explosion, thank you very much.

Walking myself out of a downward spiral like the one I’m in now – a miscarriage, followed by food poisoning, followed by a house full of sick kids and mama, followed by fire laden poisonous air outside, followed by sexual assault while running on the street – is not easy, but it is actually really fun once I can get myself into it.

Running brings me instant endorphins. Eating healthy food that fuels my body makes me feel physically cleansed. Spending undivided attention time with loved ones fills me with gratitude and love. Reading good literature and writing for myself satisfy my thirst for knowledge and a creative outlet. Going to the movies gives me some escapism. Cleaning my house provides me with the domestic routine I crave. Walking barefoot outside connects me to the earth and grounds me in the safe knowledge that the universe does indeed always have my back. Taking a hot bubble bath with a good book and a glass of wine in a clean, candlelit, saged house makes me feel complete at the end of a week.

Those are just a few of my own personal tools.

And I am secure in the comforting truth that a consistent formula will give me consistent results, and that I am doing the best I can with what I’ve got.

This transition will end. There will indeed be a glorious light at the end of this tunnel. And I’ll have just enough time to enjoy that new phase before I transition once more. Because that growth and expansion make up so much of what life is all about.

In the meantime, I’ll use my tools, I’ll listen to my soul, and I’ll love myself along the way, no matter what.

And if, in the end, I create an explosion because that’s the only way out, so be it.

I’ll still live happily ever after.

I always do.