Thresholds

Thresholds 

When is a time you remember facing a decision where it felt like you were stepping over a threshold, going in a new direction? 

One of the biggest thresholds I have crossed in my lifetime is when I decided to go back to graduate school and become a social worker. I’d been a paralegal for a long time and, at the last employer, I was there 15 years. I learned a lot, benefited from working there and was able to embrace the gratitude of that time. For a while, though, I was really unhappy. Eventually, I became a Guardian ad Litem in Mecklenburg County and worked with two families before I left North Carolina to start school at UGA. That work was so meaningful, and that’s where the road led: wanting my work to feel more meaningful, to matter.

While I am not sure I would recommend all this change at once, it went fine, and it was a lot. I quit a 17 year career, sold my home, and I moved to another state to go back to graduate school. 

I was met with a variety of responses with those decisions. Some cheered me on. Some avoided me, and some openly asked questions like had I lost my mind. One friend told me that when Daniel Boone moved to Tennessee, people thought he would be eaten by bears. When he returned, people thought, well, maybe I’ll move to Tennessee. Maybe. I remember thinking I’m Daniel Boone?

I was too excited to understand the impact of leaving every support system I’d known for a really long time in Charlotte. That didn’t hit me until after I left graduate school and moved to Atlanta.

College had not been my best time where I wasn’t much of a student until mid-way through my junior year.. Going back to graduate school helped me embrace my inner nerd. I was at the top of my class, made a 4.0 the entire time and jumped wholeheartedly into learning. It was redeeming. It has remained one of the best decisions of my life.

Had I not crossed that threshold, I wouldn’t have gotten to do meaningful work at the Winship Cancer Institute, at the Young Survival Coalition and now at Pisgah Legal Services.  

Had I not crossed that threshold I wouldn’t have met Bryan, my husband.

There are smaller thresholds that present themselves whether or not we notice. I wonder what happens when we notice on purpose, when we invite that opportunity to see.

Here are some subtle and important examples. 

Choosing how to respond in a moment where I might feel upset. Choosing to wait in that scenario and go do something else (even if it’s ironing) to take my mind off of it. There is wisdom in that. As I’ve heard said, if it’s a good idea today, it’ll be a good idea in 24 hours.

Another example might be to choose not to share my wisdom in the service of letting others make their own way. Plus, I might be given the opportunity to learn from them.

I’ve moved several times in adulthood. Those have all been thresholds of their own kind. While exciting and worth it, it takes time to build community, to know where you will buy your groceries, who will cut your hair, and the like.

There’s a natural trial and error in that.  I have learned by experience that my expectation for things to happen sooner rather than later results in this: time takes time.

I’m grateful for the thresholds I continue to experience, no matter what size they are, for they teach me.

Try this:

What is a recent threshold you have experienced? How are you feeling about it today?

What is an emotional threshold standing before you? Imagine walking through it, and write about that. Alternatively, imagine not walking through it, and write about that.

What is a threshold you have experienced where your life went into a direction that was unexpected? How did you navigate it?

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at fsconsulting2013@gmail.com.