This is How Things Grow

On transition pains

For this piece, I was inspired by a structure my friend Molly Flinkman used in the introduction to the November Coffee+Crumbs newsletter. Thanks, Molly!

---

The year is 2003. I am on the cusp of graduating from high school, and I am facing a string of decisions; the sort of decisions that could—or at least, appear to—affect the rest of my life. One evening, while gathered around the kitchen counter, my parents and I discuss one of the decisions. They listen patiently as I debate pros and cons, circling around and around an answer. Both options are good; neither would be a mistake.

My 18-year-old self doesn’t believe that, though. As I toggle back and forth, I grow increasingly distraught. 

“Would one of you just tell me what to do?” I beg my parents, exasperated by the weight of having to choose. 

My parents, with their combined years of collective wisdom, refuse.

“No,” they say. “We’ve told you what we think other times—but this decision is yours.”

The year is 2013. I am months away from having my first baby, and I am sitting on the couch with last night’s take-out teetering on my pregnant belly. The time is 2 AM, 3 AM, maybe 5 AM. I see all of the hours on the clock these days, because I am experiencing terrible pregnancy insomnia.

The nightly interruptions make me grouchy and irritated. Not being able to sleep during my third trimester seems terribly unfair. Aren’t these months before the baby comes when I’m supposed to be sleeping? I hardly know how to enjoy the midnight peace I am being afforded, because I do not yet understand that these hours, while annoying, are gently preparing my body for many years of being awake in the night, but without the demands of a tiny mouth to feed.

The year is 2022. I am less than two months away from our family’s move to Germany (apparently, important things happen to me every decade; we are slated to leave in early 2023). When we learned about the move in late August, I kept saying things like, “but we’ll still be in Kansas City for several more months!” I imagined this fall being full of my favorite things with my favorite people: fall activities, quiet writing time at the nearby art museum, and leisurely happy hours with dear friends.

Instead, as I recently told someone, “this fall has been nothing like I expected.” Although there have been wonderful moments, the past month has been particularly challenging. Someone has been sick in our family almost every day; I think my daughter has been home from school more than she has gone. My husband’s grandmother died, and we picked up a stomach bug at the funeral, which hit me squarely during our official passport appointment. Because of all the chaos, I had to cancel my participation in an art symposium, a book club, a birthday party. One of my dearest friends had a car accident and got a concussion, which means that instead of the two of us spending evenings hanging out together (as we had hoped), she can hardly text or use her phone, and we’re communicating via scant voice memos.

One afternoon, while pouting to myself about having to cancel yet another lunch date with a friend because of a sick kid, I have a flash of a memory of my former self, sitting alone on the couch, wide awake with pregnancy insomnia. 

And for the first time since we announced the move, I wonder: am I experiencing transition pains? 

Like learning to make decisions on my own while my parents sit only a few feet away, or my body preparing me for nighttime wakings three months early, are these disruptions somehow offering me the chance to slowly transition toward the assignment ahead of me—the upcoming years of facing both adventure and challenge without my favorite people and places nearby? 

I wasn’t ready to start that process so soon, and I feel myself fighting it. But although I wouldn’t wish for any of these struggles (for myself or those I love), perhaps they do contain a form of grace—some mysterious preparation for a future chapter of the story that will grow and stretch me in ways I cannot yet understand. 

Outside my window, the leaves still holding onto the trees quiver with an anxious, nervous anticipation. The temperature is slated to drop tonight, as Midwestern autumn slips suddenly into winter. I understand why the leaves are shaking through the transition; they have a big journey ahead, after all.

But this is how the seasons change. This is how things grow.