Transition Sickness
For five summers I worked at the Interlochen Arts Camp stage managing for the high school division. I was always the stage manager of the Shakespeare which meant that I also got to do the 10-day show, a show that started casting on the first day of camp and opened 9 days later. Every year I would call home, frustrated and in tears. One year my mother told me that I needed to realize that it was like that every year and that I just didn't do well with transitions. Once I had been at camp a little longer I got settled in and loved it. But those first weeks every year were very hard.
I kind of think of it as transition sickness, and I have it now. As happy as I am to be back in the South, in a nice big house, starting ministry in a warm, loving parish, I'm also experiencing the symptoms of transition: moving 1/2 way across the country, remaking my nest, unsure of routine or expectations, unclear of what I'm supposed to be doing. On Sundays I feel great, if exhausted, because I know what I'm doing. I'm comfortable leading worship and preaching, and though things at Hickory Neck are different than what I'm used to, I can mostly figure it all out. I know what I'm supposed to do, and I do it reasonably well.
The rest of the week I feel alternately overwhelmed and paralyzed. I sit and stare because I'm not sure how to start, or I'm in so many meetings that I can't keep straight which area I'm supposed to be focused on. There's more than enough to do, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to get started. I want to be a spiritual presence to others, but I can't even find my own spiritual center. It's very disorienting, and I know a lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm in transition. I feel tired all the time, and it's not because I'm working so hard.
Like it did at Interlochen, time will probably help. As my rector, Michael says, "When you stop drinking from the fire hose, you'll probably like it here even more." I do like it here. Lots and lots more than I liked seminary. But I need more time to adjust, and sometimes I'm not very good about giving myself more time.
posted by Merely Human @ 7:56 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
I'm right here with you, and I haven't even started my new job yet. I am laughing, though, because transitions are one of the Six Critical Elements my new job is supposed to all be about.
Pictures from the previous post - w00t! "The Reverend Lauren McDonald" - how happy-making is that? Very much indeed!
A year and a day, it seems, was the traditional duration for key changes. That makes sense, though: a full turn of seasons; in your current capacity, an ecclesiastical year; time to see things change and then come back again. You won't want to give yourself this much time. It seems wasteful, in fast-forward 21st-century America. You'll want to be up to speed before you start; that's what you went to seminary for, isn't it? But it isn't. And next year, when the days are this long again, and the same things are in bloom, you'll catch yourself saying ah yes, here we are again. It's familiar. And there you will be, transited.
Wow, I thought I was the only one feeling that way. You stated how I have been feeling for the last two months very eloquently! I have finally started just diving into a few things and it has made me feel a little better (or at least too busy to sit and fret over myself). Good luck on your transition time, Sister Bear!
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