Transitions

In this, my blog post for the semester (though far from my last post ever), I’d like to talk about transitions. We spend much of our lives in a state of flux; so much so that few of us even notice. Nothing is stagnant and everything around and within us is constantly changing. We’re often too busy to notice these changes, measured in minutes, days, and seasons, transitions we make moving from work to home, relationship to relationship, age to age, semester to semester.

Webster defines transition a “passage from one state, stage, subject, or place to another : change”; “a movement, development, or evolution from one form, stage, or style to another”; or “an abrupt change in energy state or level (as of an atomic nucleus or a molecule) usually accompanied by loss or gain of a single quantum of energy.”

With this in mind, remember that transitions are not just physical, going from place to place, life experience to life experience; nor are they merely within, our changing thoughts, actions, and personalities; nor is it just the seasons, fall passing to winter, the cycle of holidays coming around again and again, marked with the same mind-numbingly annoying Christmas tunes. It’s all of these, and they’re happening all the time. And things that happen again and again are things we should pay attention to. Whether you believe in serendipity or not, repeated events may help nudge us toward larger transitions and who knows where we’ll end up?