transitions, big and small

so many endings but far fewer goodbyes

by Anna Laura Art. Stay tuned to the end.

I’m visiting home (where I spent most of my childhood) this January.

Part of why coming back home feels weird is because in some ways I’ve changed drastically since growing up here, and some ways not at all. Still bubbly and hyperactive and novelty seeking, but much less anxious, gullible, controlling. More accepting of who I am, what I want. Back then I used to always ask myself: how do I be more like them (people I admired)? It’s a tremendously good sign that now I more often ask: How do I be more like me?

I’m staying in a bedroom that has the trimmings of my childhood one: the same old single bed frame, the same Steve Jobs memoir, same set of cards. We still live near a forest. I carve the same path over and over. The greenness cradles and overwhelms me the same time. My version of love is walking — or any act you repeat 100 times over and still unearth something delightful each time.

I have a theory that every adult goes through least 1/2 major internal transitions a year. But not everyone processes it, which leads to people feeling very behind in their own bodies (e.g., acting as a past version of yourself, even though your circumstances have materially changed). Someone told me recently that their mind is stuck at a certain age and time — like they still internally feel like their 18 year old self when they’re like 28. Does that feeling go away? I don’t know. I still don’t really feel like an adult but here I am. Paying taxes. Putting on my blazer and heels. Waving to my family at the departure gate before I leave for SF again.

Some years are earmarked with the anticipation of transition. College, new jobs, new friends, new city. As you get older, the transitions are less legible and obvious. Especially less visible ones. Heartbreak. Existential crisis. Spiritual awakening. Getting back into faith. Getting into a new relationship. Falling sick. Starting a creative project. Everything becomes non-linear, hard to track. No one else can understand your internal transitions. Even you barely understand them. Suddenly something consequential happens and you’re awake for the first time to the idea that things could be meaningfully different.

We’re always the most apprehensive, the most terrified in the liminal space. The gap between the end of something and the beginning of another. Where do you end and I begin? Where does childhood end and adulthood begin? In the margins. In the tiniest of spaces. In the seconds. There are so many endings but far fewer conscious goodbyes.

Sometimes I jolt awake at night, from a startling dream where my life is drastically different. In a New York borough or in rainy Seattle, or a bustling Indonesian city. I still read books. I make espresso and gear up for a different job, a different life. Then I wake up. Look around my room and realize oh I am still here, still intact. A reminder that everything could change.

Now I live in SF and I move every year. First year, a room with no door in the Mission. Now I live in a walkup with a faulty doorbell. My external circumstances change. But some things always remain the same. I’m still a big dreamer. I am terribly drawn toward people with rational minds and romantic hearts. I desire to live a poetic existence. I still walk the same route literally every day, mesmerized, looking up at the moonfilled sky.

It took me a long time to accept that the unknown is where truly good art becomes possible. It’s the threshold between contraction and expansion. Between friend and lover, between the past and the present. The transition space. Things become more beautiful once we let our attachments melt. We melt too. Only to be remolded into a new shape.

This year felt like a constant state of transition: stretching, running, unfurling beyond what I could perceive. I know I can’t predict the future because I still ask myself the same questions I asked years ago: Will someone love me back? Will my competence in this obscure area lead anywhere? Will any of this matter five years from now? What about ten?

I reconcile that ambiguity with the certainty that there’s something beautiful about living fully absorbed in the present, despite not-knowing. The goal is to keep moving through the world gently. There are so many people I have to love that I haven’t met yet. Softer places to inhabit — where I can catch a glimpse of earthy green through the corner of my window.

Everything will change. It’s your perspective that makes change daunting or expansive. The world continues to spin, we might as well dance to its rhythm. Sometimes it feels like all we know are ends. Yet we rise, hope in our bones. Beginning, again.

in contrast to the first picture, everything will change :)

Quote of the Week

If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see. Insofar as that is true, in that effort, I become conscious of the things that I don’t see. And I will not see without you, and vice versa, you will not see without me. No one wants to see more than one sees. You have to be driven to see what you see. The only way you can get through it is to accept that two-way street which I call love.

— James Baldwin

French Song of the Week

---

PS: If you are so inclined, please like and subscribe to this newsletter :) Your support helps me curate more posts and reach more readers.

PPS: Other pieces you might like: the first draft self or nothing to prove