Showing all posts tagged growing

In Books, Identity, Movies/TV, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships, Uncategorized, University, Writing

New Season

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

I’m heading into a new season this fall, beginning my two-year full-time MFA program in Creative Writing at UBC. We’re meeting in person, which will be a huge change after moving online for the the last 18 months of my BA. With vaccinations available to everyone aged twelve and up this summer, it seemed possible for a “return to normal” in September, but classes begin next week and the variants are still spreading at alarming rates.

If we’ve all learned anything during this never-ending pandemic, it’s to expect change at a moment’s notice. We plan, and we hope, getting vaccinations when they are offered, wearing masks indoors to stay safe, thoroughly washing our hands, and trying not to take unnecessary risks. We have no guarantees, and we try to manage our fear.

In any new season, I usually feel a mix of joy and dread. This fall, I have lots of different emotions crowding to the surface. I’ve loved my five month break from academia. I’ve read loads of mystery and crime novels, slept in, watched some great TV, played cards with Jason and the kids, walked, practiced some yoga and wrote. My three guiding words in this season were: rest, relax, rejuvenate. I wanted to be prepared and ready for the new challenges of being a full-time MFA student.

Part of me mourns the end of the summer. The other embraces it with open arms, as I feel like I prioritized rest and leisure, so I hope I’ll see the rewards once I jump back in to classes and assignments. I’m also going to be a TA for the first time for an undergrad writing class. This both excites and scares me. We never really know if we are up to a challenge simply by thinking about it. We have to jump in and do it in order to really find out.

We have another unexpected change in the form of Ava taking a gap year before starting at University of Victoria. For an entire year, I’ve been emotionally preparing for her to leave home, grieving for her while she was still here living with us. And then at the end of July, we found out that she wouldn’t have a place to live on campus, so after a flurry of searching for off-campus housing that didn’t exist or was ridiculously expensive, Ava made the decision to defer her admission for one year. So she remains at home, working a couple of part-time jobs to save more money for school next year.

A lovely surprise because I don’t have to let go of her quite yet, but still a change that I wasn’t expecting. Next week, William starts grade 10 at a new high school in our district, so for him it’s a new season as well. Something in my nature loves predictability and certainty, but too much stability becomes stale. We do need a bit of variety and spontaneity to keep us engaged and growing.

The older I get, the more I understand that I can’t think my way through change. I just have to walk it out. Trying to forecast exactly what will happen is a fool’s errand. Situations are too complex for that type of guesswork. As we say in the recovery movement, an expectation is a premeditated resentment. I’m trying to “cherish no outcome” as a friend of mine says. Instead I choose to believe I’ll have what I need for the challenges ahead at the moment I need them. Not before and not after.

Tomorrow the calendar turns over to September and a whole new season begins. What’s in store for you this fall?

In Culture, Identity, Minimalism, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

Patience

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

I’m not a patient person by nature. Frustration settles hard and fast in my soul when things go wrong. I get brittle and testy in a hurry (yes, I see the irony of using hurry when I’m writing about patience).

Something in me longs for security. For safety. For peace. And in our pandemic days and months, these entities are in short supply. Where patience is required, I end up spinning my wheels in a state of fear instead. The fear builds, looking for a release, and I realize that I’m far too tense.

I know I’m not alone in these feelings, which helps. When I talk with friends, I hear a similar note of frustration and uncertainty. It’s hard on all of us to peer into the future and see a series of question marks with no ability to plan due to the unpredictable nature of the virus.

And I know that we were never really in control, however, that’s cold comfort right now (nothing is actually cold as we are in a heatwave, but I digress). Control itself is an illusion, but oh how I miss that illusion. My insides are like sandpaper these days, rough and tight. I’m tired but also restless, irritated and somewhat paranoid.

Which brings me back to patience. I need to find my way back to it. When I feel the most stable, I take time every day to stretch my body and do a guided meditation to calm my mind. I’m still stretching, but meditation seems to have disappeared. I also write in my journal, as it’s a safe place to explore my fears and emotions, but lately it doesn’t seem to be helping.

Not one of us knows what’s coming. A vaccine would be great, but this outcome is not guaranteed. For now, we all struggle along in our brave new world of masks, social distancing, increased cleaning protocols and uncertainty about school and work reopening (my God, how I miss our townhouse complex pool in this 32 degree weather!). Over all of it hovers a sense of fear about the virus – will I stay healthy? Will my loved ones continue to avoid getting sick? Is this get-together an acceptable risk or is it reckless?

I’m not sure of anything right now. I know this is a growing place to be, and six months from now I’ll likely have learned something. But I can’t understand or predict that growth right now. This is the survival stage. It requires patience and gentleness, two areas I’m weak in.

Just writing this has helped me to breathe a little bit deeper. I’ve recommitted to the idea that I need to meditate each day to try to counteract my rising fear. It’s always better to swim with the current and not against it (not that I’m doing a lot of swimming but the metaphor still works). For today, I am safe and secure. I can move toward being at peace. And if I continue to feel unsettled, I can attempt to just make it through this stressful time to see how I’ve changed at the end of it. Maybe I’ll develop a bit more patience.

How are you at the 4.5 month mark of this Covid-19 pandemic?

In Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships, Writing

Liminal Space

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on Leave a comment
Liminal Space

Do you ever have trouble finding the words for the big conversations? You know, the ones where you long to communicate some deep truth, pulled from the centre of your being with a huge effort, where it feels like you are standing completely naked in front of the other person?

I’m struggling with this. I feel so utterly changed by the last four weeks of my life, but yet unable to properly talk about it with those I love most. I’ve turtled up inside, processing and going dark to the outside world.

This is likely a necessary step, and healthy, but it’s also a tiny bit isolating. It creates a gap between you and the people in your life. I know I have the right to say I’m not ready to talk about things, and this might be the best solution until I feel more sure of what it is I want to say, but the big conversations in life always leave me slightly terrified.

So much of our existence is regular routine. Only when it’s disrupted do we see things in a new way. And we realize that we are also irrevocably altered.

Liminal SpaceI learned this phrase from Rob Bell’s recent podcast on Seasons (and if you aren’t listening to all of Rob Bell’s podcasts, please rectify this immediately as they will immensely improve your quality of life): liminal space. It means the middle space; when one stage is completed and the next has yet to begin.

I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life to hear the phrase “liminal space”. I love it and plan to overuse it from this point forward. It explains so much of that waiting bit at the centre of big change. It’s transition, uncertainty, fear, loss, excitement. You know you don’t want to go back but you can’t quite move forward as the next chapter hasn’t revealed itself.

Perhaps it’s not a good idea to commit to much in the liminal space. It’s for waiting and growing and shifting. It requires an openness to what will now be different. We can’t forecast what the next season will look like while we are still moving through the loss of what came before. We simply have to wait.

Have I mentioned that I hate waiting? This appendectomy and its long, slow crawl back to my previous healthy state has invited me every single day to be patient. To stop accomplishing and just sit in my new and tired state in my comfy shorts that don’t hurt my stitches. The whole world seems different as a result. It may still be whizzing by, along with everyone around me, but I am in a separate place and I can’t keep up. Nor do I really want to.

I do feel marked in some invisible way. I can see it, but no one else really can. I guess the prescription is more waiting. I must allow this growth to bud in its own time. There is no point to rushing it or shouting something from the rooftops that I barely understand for myself. Some things should be private, particularly in the liminal space.

If you are in a transition point right now, let’s wait it out together. We can reassure each other that we won’t be in this middle space forever. The new season will begin to take shape. We will survive the transition. We have the ability to let go of the last place where we were either happy or sad (or more likely a mix of both). It will simply take a little bit of time. Sit with me in the garden and we’ll encourage each other through this liminal space.