Both Can Be True

I was putting on my running shoes when I remembered I needed to switch the laundry, because apparently there is no season of life where laundry is not quietly running the show.

I went upstairs, moved one load to the dryer, started another, and, on the way back down, I paused in the doorway of my office. My new office, which used to be Quinn’s room.

I repainted the walls when he moved out. It feels fresh. It feels like me. I have my desk set up, my artwork hung, and my plants all around me, and a space that fits this new stage of my life. And the carpet is still him. There are stains from spilled drinks, food, and the infamous slime incident, despite my very clear and strongly worded anti-slime policy. Slime has left its mark in multiple places up here. It is literally impossible to remove the stains.

So now I have new walls and the same floor. I didn't think that was going to be a metaphor. I thought it was just carpet.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how two things can be true at the same time. I even got a new tattoo to illustrate this idea. No, not like the movie “Memento,” just a visual reminder, which is what most of my tattoos are.

I can love having this room as my office and appreciate the quiet and the space and that it will remain clean, and I can look at those stains and happily remember when this room, where the floor was once covered in Legos, and miss him being here.

Empty nesting is like that for me.

You spend decades trying to raise people who can eventually live without needing you to manage their lives. If you do the job well, you essentially work yourself out of the job. Except you don't really, because, in reality, what changes is the role.

I am still their mom. I just have a different job description now, and I'm not entirely sure I have all the skill sets for it yet or the control to keep my mouth shut and to not rush in to manage. There was no onboarding. No training manual arrived when the last kid moved out. I can’t use my 20s as a roadmap to guide them through theirs because the world has changed.

That same thing has been showing up at work. I recently made it through my first corporate restructuring. People I care about lost their jobs, and for many of them, it was completely unexpected. I can feel genuine sadness for them and also feel genuine relief that I kept mine. Those things don't cancel each other out.

With this restructuring, my job responsibilities have changed. I've transitioned into a new role that is challenging and exciting and something I believe I'm up for. And naturally, I would like to be excellent at it immediately. I want to know the answers before I've had time to learn them. I want to understand the role before I've had enough experiences to understand it. I want to skip directly over the part where I'm new and arrive at the part where I'm really good at it. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be how learning works, nor does that work well with my bias towards action.

So I'm trying to give myself the grace to ask questions, make mistakes, learn, adjust, and keep going without turning every stumble into a verdict on whether I belong there. And at the same time, there is a little fear sitting beside all that excitement, because I just watched how quickly someone's work life can change. Some days the excitement is heavier in my hands. Some days the fear is.

Which brings me back to the running shoes. I'm running again, and I've committed to a four-mile Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving, but I think the decision to start running again actually started a while ago.

Over the last few years, I started noticing runners when I was out and about. Someone running through my neighborhood. Someone on a trail. Someone just grinding out miles on the side of the road. And I realized I was jealous. Not of their speed. Not of their distance. Not of their accomplishment. I was jealous because they were out there doing it.

Running has always been therapy for me. Even a bad run is still a run. You're outside and you're moving. Your brain gets some room. There is something about putting one foot in front of the other that has always helped me work through whatever else is going on, and I've always loved that when I'm out there. Also, I'm not competing against anyone, which is something I need to remember now.

My brain remembers the runner I was five or ten years ago and is apparently keeping historical pace data readily available in case I need to be humbled on a Tuesday morning. It reminds me of how far and fast I used to be able to run and what my body felt like. But my body isn't that body anymore.

I've spent a lot of time over the last few years celebrating the fact that I am not the same person I was five or ten years ago. I’m changing, growing, and evolving. I can't celebrate all of my mental and emotional change and then be annoyed and frustrated with my physical change.

So I'm following the plan. I'm listening to my body. I'm building slowly. I'm reminding myself that I'm not competing against the runners I see on the road. I'm not even competing against the runner I used to be. There is no benchmark right now because I'm starting anew.

There is something unexpectedly freeing about that. I'm not the runner I was a decade ago, just like I am not the woman I was back then. Maybe that's what keeps connecting all of these things for me.

I'm finding out who I am as the parent of adult kids. I'm finding out who I am in a new role at work. I'm finding out who I am as a runner again.

None of these versions of me are starting from scratch. They carry everything that came before them, and they also don't have to be measured against who I used to be.

There is a quote from Paulo Coelho that really resonates with me that states, "Maybe the journey isn't so much about becoming anything. Maybe it's about un-becoming everything that isn't really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place."

Maybe there is some unbecoming happening here. Unbecoming the mom who measured how needed she was by how much she managed. Unbecoming the employee who thinks being capable means already knowing how to do everything well immediately. Unbecoming the runner who thinks today's miles need to measure up or beat miles from a decade ago.

I don't think there is a final lesson in any of this. I don't think I will arrive at some point where I've mastered transition and change and can check the box.

There will always be another season. Another version. Another thing I'm learning to hold.

Some days the old stains feel louder than the new paint. Some days the new paint is enough. Most days, it's both, and apparently, regardless of the season, there will still be laundry.

Thanks for reading - keep running!

Sarah