The Dance of Transitions

Sometimes the feelings of life changes can only be described in dance steps...

Photo by Juan Camilo Navia on Unsplash

These days I’m in movement, but I’m not actually moving…

Meaning, I’m not planning for the movers to come and move us to another city or even another country…

But I am indeed actually moving. I’m moving into a space and time in my life when I decide the changes that I will make. There’s still parent-ing, and spouse-ing, and house-ing, and general life-ing. But my time feels more my own.

And although it is something I have craved for years, there’s been a wonkiness that has left me feeling unorganized, unsettled, especially the last couple of weeks. Scheduled business trips, new writing opportunities, shifting connections while visiting old friends and making new friends, has left me with some interesting new feelings. Feelings that yes, this person who coaches on emotional intelligence, can’t quite articulate. 

So it was with a feeling of pleasant surprise-ness, that in my writing class last night that a music video was shown in addition to the usual word prompt given, that this piece flowed out…It allowed me to express what I was feeling without having to name what I was feeling… 

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Back and forth. Back and forth. Sometimes in a rhythm. Sometimes with short breaks and sometimes with more long breaks.

Back and forth- side to side. My toe, my foot, my arms, my chest and then back again like a dance. A dance that I know. A dance that I don’t know but am thrust out on to the dance floor anyway.

Swiftly flowing, popping up and slamming down. Confidence sprouting out, fear coming in. Or maybe fear sprouting out and confidence coming in.

Transitions. Life transitions. Ups and downs. Steps and jumps. Tiptoeing forward, jumping back. Lunging forward, leaping back.

Transitions. Life changes. Big ones, little ones. Ones I have desired, ones I have wished away.

And but still, with an open heart, I must embrace the transition even with clenched hands and closed eyes.

What do I do next?

I don’t know how to do this transition.

I only know the one before. The one that held me, that molded me, that suited me, that fixed me.

And now a new transition beckons me forward away from the familiar, the known.

If I’m honest, it was at times uncomfortable. But now the new transition also has a scent, a wafting, a breeze of uncomfortable too, but also unfamiliar. 

Side to side, up and down. My feelings, my thoughts, my body. What is this change ahead of me? Can I take my old dance moves with me? Will it require new dance moves? What if I can’t even dance in this new place?

Maybe I can take some of it with me. Maybe my elbows and knees will also be put to use. They weren’t used very much in the other place I was in.

Oh the curiosity of being able to use a part of me that I didn’t know before.

The curiosity beckons me and through the door I go…

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How about you, is there some transition that you are going through and having mixed feelings about it, whatever they are and whatever it is?

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