Transition in the Air

Transition in the Air
By Z Zoccolante

This morning it felt like Christmas. My house was deeply quiet and cold. My dog snuggled against me under the blankets like a bowling ball of warm fur with a cold nose. There was that feeling in the air like you were the first one awake on Christmas morning. If I crept down the stairs, I might see the lights dancing in the dim corners of the room, wrapped boxes under the tree, the smell of apples and cinnamon, and pine in the air.

I loved that feeling when I was a kid. It felt like bliss. One of those moments as my friend says where everything is perfect.

But of course, it’s not Christmas. And there’s no endless Holiday like it felt when I was a kid, and the summer break felt like years of freedom, of sleeping in and watching Saved by the Bell in my pajamas. Of nights watching the shadows of Christmas decorations dance across the ceiling and the smell of sugar sweets in the air. . . A little movie-esque, but ah, the feeling.

Following this feeling was the dread of coming back to real life. I’ve just finished school, and my internship, and now it’s time to get another job. It’s time for life transitions and the opening of another chapter. It’s kind of like when you have no food in your fridge and you know you have to go shopping, but you’re so lazy and all you wanna do is lie on the couch like a bloblet and watch movie marathons and pretend nothing else exists. Like, you know that grocery shopping is great, and there’s a lot of great things you’ll find and bring home and fill your fridge, and enjoy yummy meals and laughter with friends . . .

BUT. . .

You just want to drag it out a tinsey winsey bit.

But life keeps moving and so we must as well. Transitions are a part of everything we do. I recently asked a new mom if motherhood was what she expected. She said that just when you think you know something it changes to something else.

And it’s true.

Life allows us to create moving forward. The last two years have been two of the hardest, and most growth producing, of my entire life. I’ve gotten to rebuild and restructure not only my external world, but also my insides – the ways I put myself together.

On the outside, I may look like the same person I was two years ago. But the outside is an illusion. If you met me now, you might not recognize me. The shape of me is altered. Parts are not the same. I put myself together differently.

And I quite like this new me, the one forged through the fire, with heartbreak, and honey and love, with words whispered in my ears, the sound of the ocean, and night skies full of stars.

I quite like this new me. And maybe every transition has a breath between it. This moment of dangling there, suspended between two places. The one we’ve been and the one we know me must go. And we can’t hold the past if we want to move into the future. We must let it go so it can dance in our hearts, tango in whispers under our skin, and remind us of how things can shape us into someone we love.

Remind us that people are good and that we can surrender at the same time as we control, shape, and wield our future.

If you’re in a transition take that breath with me. And now, let’s move. First step. Go.

*And check out a new episode of the Throwing Up Rainbows Podcast Season 2 here.

Transition in the Air