There are a few things that most everyone agrees on. Taxes are no fun and no one likes paying them. The Dentist may be a fun person, but going to the dentist office is never going to be a fun event. And our teenage years are something that we never want to revisit. In fact, almost universally people send up prayers of thanks every time they think about having survived those years and being past them.
But the echo of them remains forever because there is a time in every transition where you reach that awkward teenage moment when you aren’t completely done being who you were and you aren’t fully comfortable with who you are becoming. It’s that stuck place where everything is raw and new and has to be focused on so you don’t trip over your own feet or do something publicly that will never be forgotten or gotten over by everyone who witnessed it and everyone they tell about it. Even good-naturedly.
Like being at a public event with tables full of food and realizing you can’t eat anything because you’ve lost 86 lbs and have another 80 to go and everything there is a carb or a sugar or both. It’s not that you don’t want to. You could go there so easily. It all looks and smells delicious. And one little plate won’t kill you or set you back much. But that’s the old you talking and the new you is buying new clothes….again….tomorrow because you have slimmed out of everything you own and its an amazing transformation you don’t want to set back or give up on. Or settling into a new career and the new life that unfolding for you and getting a call from someone you used to know from work with a job that would just fit you. And it might and you would be great at it and it would be a wonderful opportunity. But that old life was killing you and not even slowly. And your new life may be full of unknowns and uncertainties, but you are flourishing in it one day at a time, finding your way and creating something that is good for you and everyone around you. And you don’t want to give that up without giving it a chance.
You get the picture. We never stop having those awkward teenage moments, unfortunately. Luckily, having survived them the first time, we know that they don’t stay forever, that if we just hold out they will pass and we’ll get through to the other side. And things will get remarkably better. Amazingly, stunningly, breathtakingly better. Just hang in there.
