I love the contrast between the enormous life decision of changing careers and the equally baffling question of what to eat, wear, or do with your hair. Somehow adulthood keeps presenting both with the same level of urgency.
This felt like sitting down with a friend who is sorting through life in real time and finding humor in the messiness of it. Thank you for the smile.
Why not figured out yet on "best way to style my hair"? Because it's not a biggie in the grand scheme of things, because you have bigger fish to fry as the British would say, because you have humans to raise and dreams to achieve. I loved this piece (and now I understand your note about pancakes better 😊) x
Natasha, the pancakes or chicken wings question works because it makes the whole reflection feel so human. Big change has a way of spilling into small decisions until lunch, hair, routines, and a new job all start carrying more weight than they should. I appreciate the phrase “will this make my life bigger,” because it gives the transition a clear yes while still making room for the garble and nonsense that come with reorganizing ordinary life around it. Grateful for the humor and honesty with which you captured the strange little chaos of freshening up for a new season.
Isn’t it funny how they get all mixed up in there? I feel it happens with my clients, too, like all of a sudden the kid eating a milkshake for dinner feels as bad as the big stuff that happened before the separation.
Natasha, yes, that makes so much sense. When life is being reorganized at the structural level, even a milkshake for dinner can start carrying the emotional weight of everything else that feels uncertain, disrupted, or out of one’s control. I imagine that is part of what makes the work with clients so delicate: helping them separate the ordinary messiness of adjustment from the deeper grief and fear beneath it. There is real compassion in remembering that the small thing may not be the real thing, but it may be where the real thing finally becomes speakable.
I love the contrast between the enormous life decision of changing careers and the equally baffling question of what to eat, wear, or do with your hair. Somehow adulthood keeps presenting both with the same level of urgency.
This felt like sitting down with a friend who is sorting through life in real time and finding humor in the messiness of it. Thank you for the smile.
Aw, thanks for reading and for your kind comment! Isn’t it wild that we really feel the same pressure for all decisions, big and small?
So true
Why not figured out yet on "best way to style my hair"? Because it's not a biggie in the grand scheme of things, because you have bigger fish to fry as the British would say, because you have humans to raise and dreams to achieve. I loved this piece (and now I understand your note about pancakes better 😊) x
🫶☺️ Thank you!! Sometimes the casualties of “staying sane” are mismatched socks funny. (And yeah… art imitated life haha)
Natasha, the pancakes or chicken wings question works because it makes the whole reflection feel so human. Big change has a way of spilling into small decisions until lunch, hair, routines, and a new job all start carrying more weight than they should. I appreciate the phrase “will this make my life bigger,” because it gives the transition a clear yes while still making room for the garble and nonsense that come with reorganizing ordinary life around it. Grateful for the humor and honesty with which you captured the strange little chaos of freshening up for a new season.
Isn’t it funny how they get all mixed up in there? I feel it happens with my clients, too, like all of a sudden the kid eating a milkshake for dinner feels as bad as the big stuff that happened before the separation.
Natasha, yes, that makes so much sense. When life is being reorganized at the structural level, even a milkshake for dinner can start carrying the emotional weight of everything else that feels uncertain, disrupted, or out of one’s control. I imagine that is part of what makes the work with clients so delicate: helping them separate the ordinary messiness of adjustment from the deeper grief and fear beneath it. There is real compassion in remembering that the small thing may not be the real thing, but it may be where the real thing finally becomes speakable.