The Doors I've Walked Through With Joy and Regret and Sometimes Both

Welcome to My Theme for June: Transitions

To me, June has always felt like a transition. Maybe because school years come to a close, and new jobs or relaxing vacations ensue. Maybe because the green California hills have turned gold again. June is a time when so many things all around us are transitioning to something different, even if it’s just a breathtaking summer.

That’s why transitions are the topic on my heart right now. And that’s what I’ll be bringing to Julie’s Pod this month.

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Sometimes we actively choose to transition and look forward to what’s ahead. Sometimes it’s something necessary or inevitable or imposed on us by circumstance. Sometimes it’s really tough, even embarrassing, or worse. But transitions can also bring relief and sometimes they’re supremely liberating.

Looking back on my adult life, I’ve gone through a number of major transitions in all of the above categories. Here’s a short list I want to share with you. I’m listing them in chronological order, as each inevitably contributed to what came next:

1. Deciding to Live with my Mom as an Adult Child. I made this transition in my young thirties, and it was one of the biggest forks in the road on my life’s journey, truly altering the course. It came with many blessings – like having Mom join me and Dan in raising Sawyer and Avery, and being able to be close to her and provide the care she needed in her final years. Yet, I still struggle with whether buying a home and living together was the right decision, because my autonomy as a grownup, wife, and mother was impacted, at times deeply. Yes, this transition did us a lot of good. But at times it was also very, very hard.

2. Coming out as Queer. At forty-one, I began to wonder about both my sexuality and gender identity. I would journey toward bisexuality and identifying as gender nonbinary (she/they). My beloved, Dan, would also make his own journey to queerness. Together, we embraced the imperative that we should both “grow as we go,” and we transitioned from being a hetero-couple to being a couple of queers still madly in love, living happily ever after, and supporting each other in living the fullness of our identities in this one precious life. This transition? All good. Even as many “don’t understand” it.

3. I Made a Career-Ending Choice. At forty-three, I was a successful Dean at a university and it was the best job I’d ever had. Then I made a really poor choice. I knew I’d done wrong, and I resigned. The transition to what I would do next was not just about figuring out my next career and income, it was about figuring out who I was now, since being a Dean had been a major part of my identity. This transition? I couldn’t undo the wrong, but I could learn from it. And learning from this was good and profound.

4. Starting Over Professionally - As a Writer. As I experienced the depths of feelings surrounding the above transition (shame, sadness, bewilderment), Dan asked me what I wanted to do next. I told him, “I think I might want to do something with my writing.” (Do you hear the equivocation in those italicized words?). Full of fear and facing uncertainty, I went for it. Looking back, I can see that this transition changed my life for the better, and I’m not sure I would have discovered the writer in me had I not made that career-ending choice. Now I’m the author of three non-fiction books, one of which is a New York Times bestseller, and I’m writing my fourth book (on parents and adult children living together – as I know this experience now from both sides and I really want to help others get good at it). Ultimately, I write non-fiction because I believe the truth of our lived experience, however imperfect, complicated, or even ugly, deserves a scribe, and I know that one person’s story can help others make sense of their own journey. I’ve experienced deep satisfaction from making this transition, despite the financial challenges of being self-employed rather than getting a biweekly paycheck from an employer.

5. Entering Public Service - For the Right Reasons. I’d had inklings of being a public servant my whole life, and it’s one of the reasons why I went to law school. But in my thirties, as I worked through my ego issues, I realized the embarrassing truth that maybe I had wanted the role of public servant to feel important and validated, which ISN’T a valid reason to pursue it in my opinion. (Although many do it precisely for that reason, even if they don’t realize that that’s what they’re doing.) I decided then and there that I would only get involved in public service if my community said “Hey we need you to do this.” And lo and behold, right around the time I turned fifty, that’s what started happening: Leaders in my community began telling me, “Hey you gotta run for Council because you can help us get more housing built.” I struggled with heeding the call, though, because I couldn’t figure out how we would afford it (it’s so much work, practically year-round, for hardly any pay). But by 2022, at the age of fifty-four, I realized the lack of housing in my city and region was a compelling social justice issue, and I just had to figure out how to be a part of the solution. So I ran for local office and was elected. I’ve transitioned well into this role and serve proudly while learning constantly. But the financial piece is still very much IN transition, both in terms of developing ways to earn income alongside my city service (such as offering a paid tier here in Julie’s Pod!), and with Dan, figuring out how we can live on less. This transition has been very good - giving me a sense of real purpose and usefulness - but the financial strain goes right along with it.

6. Helping Mom Die. Mom told me that when her time came she wanted to “Die of what ails me.” This meant that when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of eighty-four, she chose treatment for the pain, but did not want to pursue curative paths that might slow its progression, and her plan was to exercise her right as a Californian to take life-ending drugs when given less than 6 months to live from the cancer. Unfortunately – more than unfortunately, actually… it was really quite devastating – Mom’s cognition declined before the cancer got to the less-than-six-months-to-live point, and she could not pass the test that would permit her to ask for the life-ending drugs. Dan, Sawyer, and I surrounded her with as much care as we could. For two years I was like a sentry on constant alert for what she might need. This transition was necessary, exhausting, and good. In the end, I’m proud of how I handled it, and I know she and we did the best we all could. It’s also taught me important lessons about how I hope things will go at the end of my life – the ultimate transition.

Let me know which of these transitions you want to hear more about, because I’ll flesh out what I write about in June accordingly.

Also I encourage YOU to think about some of YOUR biggest transitions and the ones you can see coming. Share in the comments. And if you aren’t comfortable commenting publicly but still want to share, no problem: call my hotline 1-877-HI-JULIE, or write me a letter at 3790 El Camino Real #2022, Palo Alto, CA 94306. I’m here for you, and I care.

PREMIUM CONTENT: Join me for a Zoom call on my June theme of Transitions: Sunday June 22, 2pm Pacific.

Come prepared to share a good transition and a hard transition (one transition can be both, of course, as has been the case with some of mine). You’ll be witnessed without judgment and you’ll discover the world didn’t end when you shared. The link to register for the call is below my signature. (Live sessions with me are part of the premium content available to those who are paid subscribers. $5/month which is the cost of a good cup of coffee. Are you ready to join us?)

xo