Life's transitions

Life can seem to progress at remarkably different speeds. We can have periods, often lasting many years, when we seem in full control and we can glide through any challenges thrown up for us. In these periods, the pace of life can feel gratifyingly relaxed – it is as if we are being driven slowly along a beautiful road and enjoying the view.

In most lives, these stable periods are interrupted by times when everything seems to happen at once. We don’t feel in control, and are often stressed, but somehow we put one foot in front of the other and instinct helps us through. For many of us, these periods are thrilling and do most to define us. These times usually correspond to life’s transitions.

A full life will usually have many transitions, some larger than others. The earliest ones we know little about, such as conception and birth. I find the first one with any consciousness to be around age ten, when parents no longer resemble sages or Santa Claus or Dumbledore, and we willfully start to place more faith on ourselves and on other friends, with missed effects.

Next comes leaving home for a substantial part of the year, often to college. Before of after that comes a first deep partnership experience. Eventually that might lead to a fuller commitment, moving in together, and in many cases an ending of that commitment, often messy and challenging.

New jobs, new homes, new partnerships and even new marriages can signal transitions through middle life, and a big one for most of us is becoming a parent. Twenty years or so after that, the kids start leaving home and an empty nest results. Some have extra transitions, perhaps a religious conversion, an addiction or a jail term.

Finally we might get retirement, forced or welcomed, followed by health episodes and loss of loved ones. Life can start to resemble a series of small defeats that might be deferred but have to be faced eventually. Moving into a nursing home could be one of those, and finally we have to face our own impending death.

I was reflecting on this because somehow over the last few years people close to me have been experiencing transitions, and I have been trying to help them as best I can. I had my own run of them in 2009-2012. Volunteering has brought me closer to some facing their final transitions. And for the second time in a decade I am about to face the empty nest.

Which transitions are the toughest? Those involving a reversal are probably the hardest, especially when that reversal requires standing in front of friends a diminished person. Redundancy and separation are the most common of these. In the age of social media, when we all paint picture perfect lives with our posts of escalating competitive optimism, these reversals can be sudden and humiliating. By the same token, social media can help us gain the support we need to see us through.

Of the other transitions, I wonder if the one faced by 18-year-olds leaving home for college is the hardest. It is such a big change and few have the maturity to understand it or prepare themselves. Before the change, life was regular and lived under a protective umbrella. High school has a routine, and life with parents involves meals arriving on the table and clean laundry in drawers.

Suddenly all this changes. Kids are thrown into a looser schedule while being required to manage much of their own business and surviving in an environment with few, or even no, acquaintances.

Perhaps my own first week at college was a bit typical. I was desperate for the first couple of days, confused, worried, and fearful. Then I happened upon a group of people at an event organized by the college and had fun and found some others in the same boat that I could relate to. From then on I could face the challenges and forge a way forward.

Colleges realize the strain of those days and go out of their way to help, but there are no guarantees that it will work. Some kids are more prepared than others and the sorting process happens so quickly that many will end up in inappropriate groups and some in no groups at all.

This transition is also tough as a parent. Our heads tell us that letting the kids fly is the right course, indeed a cause for celebration, but our hearts share their anxiety and want to hold them tight. Meanwhile, the house and life may suddenly seem empty, perhaps putting new pressures on marriages. My first experience of an empty nest as a parent was certainly a big catalyst to my own burst of transitions.

What can we do to make transitions easier, for ourselves or for loved ones? Denial or deferment are bad options. Transitions are necessary for us to grow, and we are better facing them head on. The 18-year-old may be dreading leaving home, but there is not really a good alternative, we can’t just live all of our life at one age.

As good friends, we can reach out to people in need, looking out for when a transition may be imminent or already in full swing. In the turmoil, some stability, some diversion, some humour and some honesty can all help a great deal. We try to use all of these with our friends in the nursing home.

What if we are the ones needing help? Well, our best bet is to ask for it. Facing up to such a need can be the hardest step. Transitions can be the best time of all the cement our most enduring relationships.

Further, we can try to enjoy the ride while we are in transition, much as we enjoy the thrill of a roller coaster. Wow, did all this really happen to me in the last week or the last year? And I’m still here, and some of my decisions under pressure have been good ones. I can do this.

We can also be thankful for the periods of calm between transitions as well. A body needs rest as well as exercise, and a healthy life needs some periods of recuperation too. I try to celebrate the most stable and peaceful aspects of my own life. They might not seem special to someone on the roller coaster, but I’m quite enjoying my spectator role thank you very much.