A change of seasons


	Alan Bodnar, Ph.D. is the Co-Director of Psychology Training at Westborough State Hospital, Mass. and a consultant in the field of leadership development.

By Alan Bodnar, Ph.D.

The news and literature of our times has introduced us to perfect storms and planetary conjunctions - those relatively infrequent times when separate meteorological or astronomical events come together in exactly the right way to create a spectacle of singular power or beauty. These phenomena are not limited to the physical world. The emotional life has perfect storms and conjunctions of its own as the last days of summer so clearly reminded me.

With my son going away to college, the end of the summer was the ideal time to take one of those stay-at-home vacations that would provide the opportunity to share in this ritual marking the beginning of the transition from adolescence to young adulthood. This is not to say that the transition from high school to college starts in the third week of August. Nor is it magically achieved after unpacking the car on campus move-in day. All parents know that we accompany and guide our children on their journey toward independence from the very first day of their lives. We may know this, but we don't think about it very often, and this is as it should be.

The unexamined life may not be worth living, but too much examination in the moment robs life of its spontaneity, the quality of vitality that even the dictionary tells us is life itself. Then a buzzer sounds, the cosmic two-minute warning, alerting us that time is winding down to a significant change.

In twenty-first century America with our emphasis on giving our children the best preparation for success, there is no shortage of buzzers provided by carefully worked out timetables for taking and re-taking college entrance exams, filling out applications and financial aid forms, collecting letters of recommendation, waiting, deciding, paying, packing and moving. And it's not just your own son or daughter going through the process; everyone you know seems to be caught up in the same whirlwind. By the summer your child leaves for college, there is no excuse for not knowing that a big change is about to happen.

Yet with our attention held by the bluster of external signs of change, we may be surprised to notice the gradual unfolding of quiet inner changes preparing us for the new directions our lives are about to take. When our son began to revisit earlier times in his life - activities, sports, hobbies and experiences that we shared - revived now in conversation or in doing, he was getting ready to move on to another chapter. I could only hope that I was also getting ready to give him the help that my own greater life experience should equip me to provide. When your youngest leaves for college, you may be of an age to start thinking about the next phase of your own career, especially as friends and colleagues retire or move on to new professional and personal challenges. The coming together of such major transitions in both family and professional life can provide conditions for a perfect storm or spectacular planetary alignment.

While at home I was sharing in my son's practical and emotional preparations for college, at work I was getting ready to say goodbye to a colleague preparing to retire. Because we are friends, we can speak easily to one another about our hopes and fears for the future and because we are psychologists, we know it helps to do just that. Until it actually happens, all change is hypothetical. We can surmise as much as we want to about what it will be like to be away at college, to be a parent in an empty nest, to leave our usual routine and start a new job or to find new ways of staying in touch when the easy camaraderie of the workplace is no more. However, until the change actually happens, it is all conjecture.

So this summer I decided to do my conjecturing while on vacation. A suspension of the workday schedule provides the ideal vantage point from which to imagine change. When nothing is required, anything is possible and with 10 days to relax and reflect on the changes going on around me, I hoped to return to my own work with a renewed sense of purpose and energy. My son would leave and my friend would retire, but the important elements of our relationships would go on in ways that I could only guess. I shared in the joy of their new adventures, looked forward to scouting reports from each of them and felt that my own life could only be enriched as their new worlds intersected with my own.

If I needed reassurance that such things could happen, the phone rang in my office just as I was leaving. It was a former patient who had been discharged from the hospital five years ago and now calls once or twice a year to say hello and fill me in on developments in his life. Life is good, life is tough and he is enjoying himself more than he ever thought possible. Five years ago, such a change was pure speculation. Now it is his reality and, when he calls to remind me, mine as well.

A change of seasons (October 2007 Issue)

By Alan Bodnar, Ph.D.

A change of seasons
(October 2007 Issue)