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Goodbye to the Familiar: Allowing seasons of life to transtion with Allison Johnson and Katy Stafford
63 Plays11 days ago
In this rare sister-episdoe, Katy and Allison, swap stories of different seasons in their life when they knew it was time to embrace an ending, but they felt unsure of what awaited them on the other side. In their own words, they find language for the risks they each chose to take and the way they navigated closing a sweet and familiar season they didn't want to leave, per se, but knew they had outgrown.
Intimate, curious, and connected, join these two women as they bear witness for each other to a couple of stories on unexpected change and adventure.
For more stories from brave, ordinary women, join us at Red Tent Living.
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Transcript
Introduction to Red Tent Living Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Katie Stafford, and this is the Red Tent Living Podcast, where brave women host honest conversations about our beautiful and hard ordinary.
00:00:12
Speaker
Each week, we share stories with the hope of seeing one another a little better and affirming each other across different seasons and perspectives.
Welcoming Listeners and Sharing Stories
00:00:22
Speaker
We're excited for you to join us.
00:00:24
Speaker
Welcome to our table.
Meet the Hosts: Katie and Allison
00:00:28
Speaker
Hi! Hello, how are you? Good. good How are you? I'm good. Happy Saturday. Yeah, we're recording on Sunday. I'm assuming for listeners, we get feedback that you and I sound a lot the same. So people might even be wondering who we are right now. Yes.
00:00:45
Speaker
So this is Katie and I get to talk with Allison. I'm the oldest of the Johnson kids and Allison is my oldest sister. So she's right under me in age.
Navigating Life Transitions
00:00:56
Speaker
um And we're talking about seasons of ending. And like when we've each navigated a season of ending, whether we've done it well, whether we've done it poorly. But yeah, we both get to round up and have this conversation today and I'm excited.
00:01:15
Speaker
And I will say, so this is Allison talking. um And I'm so sorry for if you are not watching us talk and listening to this because i have countlessly been told I sound like Katie. So may the odds be ever in your favor.
00:01:31
Speaker
I think they'll be able to tell who's who.
00:01:34
Speaker
So ah how did you find this prompt when I called and said, hey, is this something you'd be up for talking about with me? what went through your mind and how have you been sitting with it?
00:01:46
Speaker
I think as I, as you called and we talked through it a little bit, I was excited, definitely nervous. Endings can feel like such a tumultuous topic.
00:01:58
Speaker
And so then finding the right one and processing through like, is this still raw? And if it, it like, just really like finding that space inside of you, um For that, am I settled and does this feel well within me? And how do I want to share this? So very much with a excitement, but also a respect of the topic itself, because it is one that resonates so deeply. It's one of those emotions that's such a piercing to the soul moment that being fully present and alive to it and to that story ah matters.
00:02:35
Speaker
So I think I was holding that both and. Yeah, i that makes complete sense. As I was thinking about this theme, you came to mind very quickly because we, I mean, we were both raised in a house that I think encouraged a lot of big dreams and venture outs, right? Like there was this sense of like, go and do. And as two women who are both in our thirties, and I would say have both had a number of endings, lived in a number of cities, lived
00:03:07
Speaker
stateside and globally for seasons.
Reflecting on Life Changes
00:03:10
Speaker
Like we, we know what it is to start new things. We know what it is to see things come to a close. And that's happened for us in like really different ways. And so I, it was like, this totally makes sense.
00:03:24
Speaker
As I was sitting with the prompt, I was like, I wonder which, like, which story should I tell? There's so many different kinds of endings. Yeah. And i I was also aware of like, I'm on the precipice of another one too, where it's like entering into motherhood is an ending of a kind, right? Like a way of being in the world, a way of understanding my family. Like that's very present. That's not the story I chose for today, but it's like, oh, it's happening again. Like we are always ending and beginning something. Always. but e
00:04:00
Speaker
um Well, with that, How about I jump in first? ah The story that I ended up picking, i I have this visceral memory. This would have been, gosh, when I was probably,
00:04:20
Speaker
twenty nine 28 or 29 years old. It was probably 28. And i my job, I was working at this ad agency and it was a really tumultuous time and the ad agency actually ended up going bankrupt.
00:04:37
Speaker
And so it was this like season of anxiety and like, am I going to be okay? Like this was my first real job. Like I'd been there three and a half years at that point, but it was, it was a really kind of scary time.
00:04:57
Speaker
And just wondering like, how, how am I going to land this and feeling a little out of control. And then two of the, uh, like leaders at that company decided we're going to start our own thing. And they invited me to come along.
00:05:12
Speaker
So I had a I had a very narrow time of like, Oh my gosh, what am I going to do? Like I might have to move out of my apartment. And then I landed in this space of like, Oh, I'm going to help start a new company. And That season corresponded with a ton of life change for me.
A Journey of Reflection and New Beginnings
00:05:30
Speaker
So I had navigated a broken engagement. I had at that point chosen to move into my own place. It was the first time I lived on my own.
00:05:42
Speaker
And that felt super important to me because I'd lived with roommates and then I was going to be married. And so I was going to, you know, live, live with my husband.
00:05:52
Speaker
And then that broke apart. I had had like one stint. I did a teaching fellowship um for almost a whole year and I had had my own apartment there. But this was a moment where it's like, I actually have like nice adult furniture that I've bought and I like don't want to move back in with hand-me-down stuff with roommates I feel like I have to do something new and like just embrace my life and the vibrancy and the opportunities of being like a grown single woman. Right. Because that comes with a lot of luxuries as long as you lean into them.
00:06:31
Speaker
um And so like I'd been navigating all of that and got this offer from these guys to start this new company and had this sort of harebrained idea that I wanted to take a month and travel the western United States and Canada via road trip and just see all of the people who had mattered to me, visit cool master's programs in case I wanted to like do that. Like I just I had all of these
00:07:05
Speaker
dreams and I told the guys who wanted to start the company I'll come if you let me take this road trip and like I wanted part of it to be off like just holiday and part of it to work remote before anybody was working remote yet right because this was definitely pre-COVID and they said yes And so I did this like month long journey.
00:07:30
Speaker
And like what I realized now is that journey of like traveling to Memphis, Tennessee and like walking the old stomping grounds of my college campus and visiting friends in, you know, outside of Knoxville and then going over to North Carolina and then spending time in Virginia beach on the Atlantic ocean. And then like all the way up to Canada and just like discovering a new city by myself. Like all of those stops were me putting a bow, saying goodbye to a season of like grieving and loss where it's like, okay, my life took a irreparable turn. I have no control over it.
00:08:16
Speaker
And I'm like reconnecting with the core of myself on this trip and imagining a new life. Like, Not just creating space to feel sad about the life that I lost, which I had been doing, right? like And I think I'd been making good therapy choices, good friendship choices, good self-care choices, but it was a pretty, like, me-focused time to heal.
00:08:44
Speaker
And this road trip... was kind of about imagining something new. And so my last night was in Ontario before, like, I was going to drive Toronto to home. And I went out to this brewery that was right on the water.
00:09:00
Speaker
And so I am sitting, staring out at the water. It's gorgeous. It's dusk. I've got a beer and my journal. And I'm just like journaling about what did I learn on this during this four week adventure. um And I learned a lot of things. And the final thing that I like settled on was this choice.
00:09:20
Speaker
A friend of mine at seminary was looking to move into the city of Grand Rapids, which is about 30 minutes from Holland, Michigan, where I was. And he asked if I'd move in with him.
00:09:32
Speaker
And it's sort of an an unlikely choice to signify like a whole new start and embracing a new chapter. But what I had started to feel was, okay, I cocooned away for a little while and did some healing.
00:09:49
Speaker
And now I want to be, i want to be welcoming people. new places, new flavors, new people, new ways of living into my life.
00:10:00
Speaker
And I don't want to get so fixed in what has felt really safe that I missed the opportunity to lean into some of what, like,
00:10:12
Speaker
living with another person naturally stirs up, right? Where it's like conflict and different preferences and like somebody pushing you to go out on Thursday night for a happy hour, right? And like, let's throw parties. And like, I just wanted to be doing life again with someone. And I didn't feel like it was a regression. I felt like it was a new step.
Embracing Uncertainty and Creativity
00:10:36
Speaker
And so I... journaling and aware of like, I'm gonna go back to my place. I'm not gonna renew my rent in two months and I'm gonna start something new. Even though I've like loved where I've lived and I've built something comforting for myself, like it's time. And A lot of times you're ending something unto something known, right?
00:10:59
Speaker
It's a graduation and you're going to college or you're going to a job or it's a promotion or it's I'm moving to this city for this reason. That's not always true, but for a lot of my endings that had been true. And this one, it was like, I don't know.
00:11:14
Speaker
i it's It's a new chapter and I'm just creating blank space for something to happen. Yeah, so that just was the ending that stuck in my mind because I think for that reason, that it was like this one time where ah really was just leaping out because i sensed in my body it was time, but I wasn't leaping out towards something. And it wasn't a massive shift. It wasn't like I'm quitting my job and I'm moving to Seattle to join an ad agency there, right? It was just this small opening of like,
00:11:52
Speaker
I'm going to leave my apartment. I'm going move 30 minutes away with a new person and just open up to like a new daily rhythm to see what that creates in my life.
00:12:05
Speaker
So. that was That was the story that came to mind this time. I love hearing you talk about that story. having Being your sister, i know this story. Right. but that's one thing You were getting the highlights on the road. Yeah.
00:12:20
Speaker
i remember I remember you calling me like, I'm not staying here. This place is sketchy and I'm going to die. be like I support this choice. Let's talk as you drive to the nearest hotel. That did happen. What did happen, there was one Airbnb where I was like, I'm going to be murdered in the hills of Canada.
00:12:36
Speaker
I am for sure driving away. Thank you do so much, Pam, for going to Asheville. I'm going to be there a couple hours early. So sorry to change your plans, but I went to live.
00:12:49
Speaker
ah So I think just knowing the story and hearing it now in the in the moments of we know how some of the things that you had said goodbye to have now fully um come to a conclusion, but that I just remember that.
00:13:08
Speaker
remember that trip. And I remember being like, she's going on a road trip by herself. Isn't she scared? Like I, there was so much like, what energy for me that I was like, I don't know that I could do this. And, and I just remember getting the highlights along the trip, getting, knowing the why beforehand, knowing how that,
00:13:29
Speaker
conclusion of this really fabulous job was was ending and this change and and that that space of unknown knownness that you just slid into and just said yes and to.
00:13:48
Speaker
one This space of yes there's a goodbye. Yes there is change. Yes there's a transition. And I get to choose the moments of control that I want. I get to choose adventure. i get to choose life.
00:14:06
Speaker
I get to choose reflection. And so this active choice that you made in the midst of this change to not only be alive or like survive it, because that that isn't that isn't the feel of it, but there's a there's an even bigger sense of, oh, I decided to do something.
00:14:25
Speaker
something bold and beautiful and brave. And I want to know who I was to know how I want to walk into this, this new space and to be open to whatever this trip tells me and teaches me, because you didn't know you were going to move in with that friend at the beginning of the trip.
00:14:44
Speaker
Right. You learned along the way who you were, what you were about this space of almost and with, with Lent coming upon us, almost like this 40 days of like 30 days ah or, you know, 35 days away.
00:15:01
Speaker
And, and you had your anchors and and still engaging with certain, you know, projects or things like that. But, um, this time of taking a step back, um, to fully know the life you wanted to live and, and where I'm just struck, um,
00:15:19
Speaker
with not a lot of people would take that time. Not a lot of people would actively make that. They would, well, this has happened. So now I need to do this. Now I need to do this. Now I need to, like there's, there's a ah ramping up.
00:15:30
Speaker
Whereas I think for you, there was a softening deep and down and rooted that, that is based in that story. And I just, I'm struck and I love that. And that feels very unique to you.
00:15:43
Speaker
um And who you've always been on helping someone recenter and reroute into what is the truest thing and ah where is there still life and adventure and surprise and like nervous and like, okay, where is that still always belonging in that space too?
00:16:03
Speaker
yeah. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. I look at that trip and I had moments on that trip where it did dawn on me, like, this is a little crazy, a little more like I'm just a big planner. So I love adventure, but I love a plan.
00:16:19
Speaker
Yeah. And There were parts of that trip that were loose where it's like, I'm not quite sure where I'm staying here or I'm not quite sure how many days it's going to be.
00:16:31
Speaker
I needed my passport for Toronto and it had not arrived yet. So I decided to have a friend pick it up and ship it to one of the places that I was going to be. h i think it's going to work out.
00:16:46
Speaker
What I believe put me in that frame was I talked about, I always talk about when that relationship ended, when my engagement ended, I felt like I was unstitching. Like I had to stitch by stitch, tear out what had been this knitting together with my fiance. And then it happened again with my job, right? Where it's like, I think there is a lot of,
00:17:16
Speaker
I feel like when you graduate from high school, there's a lot of stitching, building energy of like, this is the plan. This is how it's supposed to go, right?
00:17:27
Speaker
I'm supposed to go get my degree. And then I'm supposed to go get my very successful job in a city that's magical. And then I'm supposed to make my friends and start to succeed. And from those friends, I'm supposed to meet my spouse. And then we're supposed to buy a house together.
00:17:42
Speaker
and have babies and it's just like stitch stitch stitch and that season which had been like two years at that point maybe 18 months was just all of the stitches coming out and and choosing to do that for myself but it left me floating in a way that not that I didn't know who I was but it was just like there was a there was an airiness and a buoyancy and a levity where it's like, I can do this and I will be okay. And I will land and then I can attach in new ways. But I don't think I could have done it. I have always said like, I don't think I would have started, helped start that new company if anybody had been counting on me because it was like, literally we are building this from ground zero. Like,
00:18:39
Speaker
I made our first sale at that company. It was a website. I was talking to friends and I like, I pitched it for like $12,000. I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. Like, but I also want a paycheck in two weeks. So I'm going to sell this website.
00:18:56
Speaker
Like it was, it was a little bit crazy. And I think like, We have this natural wariness and fear about those like, oh, I want to do anything to stay away from there. I'm just going to stitch in closer where I am.
00:19:11
Speaker
Sometimes we stitch ourselves into a little bit of a corner where it's like, there's more life to live here. And i view like the endings that I experienced, there was plenty of trauma around them.
00:19:26
Speaker
But I do feel like there was also this deep divine invitation to richer life that like you don't get if your life is just going according to plan and oh so cheery. Like, I feel like those friends, I hear like a gnawing sense of desperation where they're like, how do i life has to be bigger than this. Right.
00:19:48
Speaker
But it's like, nothing's pushed them over the edge. to risk what makes life feel a little bit bigger. When i just, I think about, i mean, you know this, but anytime, anytime I'm doing a painting, there's the plan.
00:20:03
Speaker
and and I know how to start, but I'm i'm so, i feel like I'm almost timid as I'm starting a painting because it's a fresh canvas. And I'm like, and I don't want to mess up and I don't want to mess up. So I i plan and plan and but think through it all in my head. And then I, taking my paint out and actually putting it on, on the easel, putting, putting it on, um,
00:20:24
Speaker
on my paint palette to start mixing and creating, and this is the right one. And then touching it. Like there there's, there's kind of this anxiety as I'm like, I'm being creative. And it's like, there's a, there's a chaos artist energy to it where it's like, this is fun. And I'm like, but is it?
00:20:39
Speaker
And then I mess up and I make a mistake or my hand slips or I use the wrong color or something happened. And the minute that happens, i and I'm like,
00:20:51
Speaker
now in it. And that's when I actually become the artist. That's when I actually can breathe into the art piece and where I can actually know what it's going to look like. And I actually can be like, okay, if I made a mistake.
00:21:05
Speaker
Now, what are we going to do? Now, what is this going to be? Now, what is this trying to tell me? And the painting changes in front of me as I continue to make mistakes and learn and grow it. If you haven't had that moment of plan did not happen the way I thought it was going to, you don't actually find the beauty and the creativity and the creative energy of it.
00:21:29
Speaker
to after. And that's what I'm also hearing for you. Like, we do know those people who they did the plan, and they have a beautiful life, but asking them to go beyond the plan, it almost feels like it's a ah scar that's like, there's ah there's a wound there that like, the scarring makes it harder to get to the heart of the resilience, the heart of, I can do hard things, the heart, like, and so I just, if something isn't broken at some point or another,
00:21:59
Speaker
it's a lot harder to break later down the road and it's a lot harder to know how to come back from it, I think. Yeah, I agree. Like, I love that metaphor of the canvas and, you know, your plan with the paint. And it's like, you were always, you were always making something beautiful, but the moment that the mistake happens,
00:22:22
Speaker
suddenly you enter into relationship with the canvas and you grow reflective. What is this canvas trying to tell me? What does it need next? And i I do feel like that is the invitation of life. What is this life?
00:22:38
Speaker
trying to tell me like, and if all we're doing is building, we're just not, we're not necessarily listening to life. Right. And we might still be creating something really good.
Career Reflections and New Opportunities
00:22:50
Speaker
I'm not, I'm not saying that that's wrong, but I am saying like, it's different.
00:22:58
Speaker
And there is a richness to being in relationship with your life and letting it speak back to you. That is really, really lovely. Yeah.
00:23:09
Speaker
Cool. What about you? What story are you bringing today? So the story I'm bringing today I was... i was
00:23:23
Speaker
I was 26 or about to turn 26. Right in that, in that timeframe. And I, it was post-grad. So my story is about my first job and transitioning from that first real job into the next stage of life. And i um, I was working in higher ed and, um,
00:23:46
Speaker
had done the job that I was in. They paid for me to get my master's degree with them at the university I was at. So I had done a lot of lifetime in this short amount of time. So I was at full time,
00:23:58
Speaker
staff member working in residence life. I was a hall director, so I oversaw the RAs and the training of them. I was doing emergency response. I was leading committees of training and transition. i was I was helping with curriculum and what do we want our students to take from their time on campus. I was helping write policy while also Being master's student for, it took me two years and to get my master's degree while there. And for me, i'd been there two years.
00:24:33
Speaker
I graduated with my master's degree and i knew that I needed to start thinking long-term about what was next. And so I spent the next, I graduated in 2016.
00:24:46
Speaker
And so I spent the next year kind of figuring out like, do want to go somewhere? What do I want to do? What's the next step? But was also growing the relationships and and loving my time in the city I was in. So wondering if if I stayed, if I tried to advance in night in that university, if i I wanted to get a promotion there.
00:25:05
Speaker
But I reached a point where I knew I needed to leave at some point. I knew it wasn't I wasn't supposed to stay. So I took a year and a half, kind of in that two years after graduating, I think I took six months and was like, maybe, and I was like, let's start looking at other things. So I started traveling around the country to visit friends saying, is this next?
00:25:28
Speaker
Is this what's next for me? um And in that time, i applied to seminary and got in and went and traveled to the city and said, oh, this is not what's right for me and deferred and said, I'm not going.
00:25:39
Speaker
I traveled to different conferences around the country to say, like, am I supposed to be in a Seattle? Am I supposed to go back to Chicago? Am I supposed to be closer to home? Like, what what do I want? my life to look like. While also holding that my job, my entire life was wrapped up in this job. It was fully encompassing. And like we worked 40 hours a week, we worked 60 hours a week. We didn't work 40 hours week because our whole life was there.
00:26:06
Speaker
We ah eight on campus. We lived on campus. We responded to our students on campus in emergencies. Our community was on campus. I met my best friend.
00:26:18
Speaker
on campus. She was in my interview when I was applying for this job in 2014 when I graduated from college. And so my whole life was at this university. the The friendships that I knew would last me my life, the graduate program that I never thought I would get to do and that I, you know, the plan was like someday, someday, someday, someday.
00:26:44
Speaker
Well, someday, was those four years in Phoenix. And did a pretty good number of the things that, you know my life was supposed to hold. And so I think I just started realizing the bigness that was waiting for me and where not that I had There were moments that I didn't believe in myself. I did, but I didn't believe more.
00:27:05
Speaker
I didn't believe I was capable of more. Even though I pushed and I i had really achieved these things that were told to me that were impossible. So I had all this energy kind of wrapped up in me. And then I was like, i I was entering in to my fourth year. And I was like, I know this has to be my last year. Like I specifically...
00:27:28
Speaker
didn't hire RA because I couldn't have him feel like I was abandoning him if I left midway through the year. So another friend of mine mentored him and took him on, but I knew my time at this place was coming to an end. And I think I i was learning in that time just how much I'd given to this job and and where change needed to happen for me long-term, even though it was safe and even though my whole life was there. So there was almost this chaos inside of me of how do I say goodbye to everything that my life is?
00:27:58
Speaker
my friends, my community, my church, my grad program, a job that's paying me and I'm not, you know, having a an hourly job, it's a salary job.
00:28:13
Speaker
what's next? And I'd given so much to higher ed. I think I was like, is this what I'm supposed to do? Because I don't know that I can give this much of my lifeblood for the rest of my life. And is this what it looks like? And I spent that year really looking back and being like, I know I have to leave, but I have no idea what I'm going toward.
00:28:33
Speaker
and And there was a moment where I lost, we had a student pass away in a hit and run ah that it was a student I had known. He lived in my building and we had two students that passed away that year and they were just, they both wrecked me pretty good. and But this one I knew I didn't have the ability to care for myself and my students. I knew it was going to be costly. So my, my mom bought me a ticket and said, you're coming home.
00:29:02
Speaker
And so I got on the plane less than 24 hours later and ah flew to Austin and was,
00:29:10
Speaker
was sitting at a sushi restaurant with her in Austin after swearing that I would never live in Texas again. ah And I heard the tower UT's campus. um And I just said, i wonder what it would be like to live here and to hear those bells. And it was just a simple thought just passing kind of in my head.
00:29:33
Speaker
But I went back to school and I started thinking about Austin, I started thinking about that new space and I started applying for jobs and looking other things, but i reached a point where I knew in my soul, and need to leave.
00:29:49
Speaker
And i don't know that I have anything to go towards, but I will be leaving. And the next place I'm going to, I'm going to choose this city. I'm going to choose to go back to a state that I had grown up in, that i swore of never live in again, um, to believe that maybe my story with Texas isn't done.
00:30:07
Speaker
Uh, so I, think that happened in March of 2018 I, built out vacations. I built out my time. So I would use up my vacation time.
00:30:20
Speaker
I was looking at jobs. I traveled home. I looked at Austin. I looked at all these things. Um, and nothing was panning out, nothing was happening. And I was like, maybe I'm not supposed to be in higher ed. So started looking at other jobs.
00:30:32
Speaker
Um, but I got to a place where i knew my time was going to come to an end in July. So I took on my PTO and I, ah and I came back and I put in my two weeks notice and started packing up my life.
00:30:52
Speaker
Um, knowing that I was, I was, dropping into the unknown completely but I would be driving across the country and I actually had another friend she was looking at moving to Asta at the same time so we both we got a storage unit together we put all all our stuff into storage we were going to move at the same time and she was going to move in with friends and I was going to move home and look for a job here. But I knew I needed to walk into the unknown without something to walk into, you know, completely, um to figure out what was next. And I'd saved up enough money to be like, I can make it eight months.
00:31:29
Speaker
I can make it eight months with my car payment and everything like that and pay for insurance. But that goodbye was such an odd one because for so long, it had been building up inside of me. I knew it was coming and I was slowly saying goodbye and I would do those last drives, those ones through Phoenix where it's like, I just got in the car and we put on my playlist and I just drove in the desert and that smell and i and the rain in the certain moments where we get very little rain, but when we get it, there's this very unique smell and i would go and drive and I would drive the grid and I would go to the places that matter to me and and the building up of it.
00:32:07
Speaker
Um, And the last couple, what like the RAs who knew and the ones I would call and like the going away parties that we had and everyone asked what was next. And I said, I have no idea. And I think that's what matters most.
00:32:19
Speaker
I think I needed to tell myself I was brave enough to leave because for so long, so much of my life was based in the control. and I had to have a plan. I wouldn't leave unless I knew what I was leaping into.
00:32:33
Speaker
And I had had a leap that didn't happen, graduating from college and GCU was a, was that leap where I was like, oh my gosh, this was not the plan. But then the goodness, there was so much more goodness there than i even dreamed for myself.
00:32:48
Speaker
So I think there was something in me of the saying, yes, I'm falling, I'm free falling and i I can do this. But knowing, i think I was devastated at college when I didn't get into the master's program, I thought, and it wasn't, I wasn't going stay in Chicago.
00:33:04
Speaker
And leaving GCU, I wasn't devastated. i was ready. am i And I, it almost was like standing on a cliff and having the wind blow you and knowing that it will absolutely blow you away, but it will not destroy you in the midst of it.
00:33:23
Speaker
And there was something different. There was something truer, almost like maybe I am more of the wind than something to be swept up and destroyed by it. But maybe i am more supposed to be in this flow and see what comes next.
00:33:38
Speaker
And so I got swept away in the best way possible going toward the unknown. But that goodbye is still one of the s sweetest and hardest of my life because everything was gone.
00:33:52
Speaker
But I was walking into something knowing that I wasn't losing it. I was going toward what was next. um And that I was walking toward a bigger world. And I wasn't going to be eaten alive by the world.
00:34:09
Speaker
And so that, that time was just, it's still, I think surprised me similar to like your story where it's like, am walking into the unknown. This feels crazy. Like, h I don't know.
Pursuing Possibilities Beyond Comfort
00:34:21
Speaker
And, uh, and in that goodbye, there was fear and and heartache and, and loss, but there was also, it almost was like my heartbeat contracted the blood flow deeper into my soul than it had when I said yes to it.
00:34:37
Speaker
So there's just an aliveness that came inside of me, to saying yes to that goodbye and walking into Austin and and then figuring out the next six months,
00:34:49
Speaker
Was I supposed to go into high-right? Like, what was my lifeblood supposed to go into next? But I think I needed that finite goodbye, like that, like, I am severing something to figure out what's next. And to then figure out community and life in a different way, in a different city, with everything being new, and how to build up my life again.
00:35:09
Speaker
Mm-hmm. How did that... How about goodbye... I love how you um talk about your relationship with goodbye and this like sweet growing sense. I wonder what did goodbye feel like and sound like in your body as it was building your awareness of like, I got to go.
00:35:31
Speaker
the Coming back to painting. I know when I'm supposed to say goodbye to a city when I've created the painting. in
00:35:40
Speaker
And the painting of that city, the landscape. Yeah. Yeah. And every monumental big city in my life, I've painted and it hangs in my apartment. And I knew what I was going to paint a Phoenix.
00:35:51
Speaker
And I think it it's almost that space of I live my life with the image of, oh, if I was going to capture this image, this is what I would paint. And this is what I would name it. And so I think there was a lot of me that felt so broken, I think. And I was concluding my time ah at that school, just because there was so much of my life I poured into it. And so I think there was there was a heartbreak to it.
00:36:13
Speaker
And there was a fear of like, this is all I've known. And I didn't even believe I could have this job or do this. So then to leave it feels like I'm abandoning it. And am I like, is it a portrayal of myself? Am I just being self? Like there was a lot of questions of my identity, and i think in it, but my body just knew it was almost like there was something deep inside that said there's more. And even in the midst of the fear, just this like,
00:36:40
Speaker
There's more to be had, love. There's more to be had. And there was a weariness and a shakiness, almost like when you're so cold to your bones, you have that like shake inside. the and And that was, had my days there.
00:36:54
Speaker
But I think the longing and belief that there was more was more powerful than the weariness and the shaking to the depths of my soul of this is a mistake.
00:37:05
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And I think sometimes we can get numb to our life and numb to the, we just, the mundane feels good. And even the shakiness felt like, oh, this is me still being alive.
00:37:18
Speaker
That's, that's, don't know. Even, want to feel, even if it's the worst thing possible, I'd rather feel that than feel nothing. Yeah.
00:37:29
Speaker
Did you, it, It seems like maybe there had been a dulling who or a dampening, perhaps even tied to some of the trauma where you're like, things are hitting me hard and I'm like stealing over, like insulating. You were talking about scar tissue earlier, like maybe even developing scar tissue around wounds.
00:37:50
Speaker
Yeah. What? Yeah, that's a great, great way of saying there's definitely some scar tissue.
00:37:59
Speaker
what did How did that compare to the moment at the sushi restaurant hearing the bells? Like, what? Tell me more about that. And like, what ignited inside of you that said, it's Austin. I don't know what it is yeah in Austin, but it's Austin.
00:38:16
Speaker
There was something so deep in my core. I just, the fact that I i can see it and like, couldn't even see the tower, but for some reason the wind carried the bell. And I was like, I'm like 12 blocks away.
00:38:28
Speaker
Why do I hear this? But I think, uh, I think in the moments of, I think in the raw moments of life, you get out of your way to have the divine show up.
00:38:39
Speaker
Mm-hmm. um And I think in that moment of just processing that loss of that student and processing what it what it meant to my other students, like just the the empathy so deeply of of just that tragedy um and just that trauma that everyone in higher ed has known.
00:38:56
Speaker
We all know that that life that was cut too short and we're like, what in the absolute world is happening? And that just complete dumbfounded, like what?
00:39:07
Speaker
To then be sitting in the, in the wake of that. And then to, to have life, to have something like bells ring. And it almost was that jarring moment to bring me back to the surface. Maybe it was just this like lightheartedness, but growing up in Texas, I knew UT Austin.
00:39:24
Speaker
I knew it. Like the back of my hand. I didn't apply there because I wasn't getting in. And yeah,
00:39:33
Speaker
ah thing I think sitting in that space and going, oh, I remember living small. I remember living small in this state. And I remember saying, I'm not applying here. I'm not getting in. It's not even worth my time.
00:39:46
Speaker
And it would not have been the right school for me. But knowing that then sitting there and hearing it and being like, I'm a different girl than who I was when I left at 18. I'm a different person.
Coming Full Circle: Growth and Realization
00:39:58
Speaker
And not only am I a different person, that I have something to offer this place. And I may not, but I think hearing the bells was like this little call out being like, what if you applied to the school you were sure you would never get into or touch?
00:40:16
Speaker
What but if you tried? What if there was maybe a redemption to this story that you were so sure this wasn't the right fit and that it wouldn't happen? Mm-hmm.
00:40:28
Speaker
And so, and I think it would even like, it just, all the good goodbyes kind of came back a little bit. The goodbye to Texas, the goodbye to undergrad and like high school and like everything like that.
00:40:39
Speaker
There was something that came alive in a, in a way where it's like every, you know, it's a moment from Sound of Music where Maria's like, even when God closes a door, he always leaves a window open somewhere. And it was just kind of a window open to the possibilities.
00:40:57
Speaker
So every goodbye has a window that is, hey, you can, you can stay here and you can stay here as long as you want. And I know that the door you think you're, eat the door you were expecting to be unlocked in there, that's closed.
00:41:12
Speaker
But there's also this option. And so I think there's always an invitation and a reaching out that comes in a good vibe where your life goes, okay, what now? Yeah, I love that. And I don't think you've said it explicitly in this podcast, but you did end up applying you to UTI and you work there now and you are an associate director of it events and totally killing it. um And like what I hear, i love thinking about like,
00:41:39
Speaker
Every full circle moment is a homecoming, which means that you have had to end things. You've had to leave things. You've had to journey and you've chosen chosen to come back. And so like this, you know, we were, I think that brings an interesting layer to the endings conversation where it's like, yeah, sometimes an ending is about leaving something completely. And sometimes an ending is actually about closure and a returning and returning.
00:42:10
Speaker
in a in a new form right because transformation has happened so you are coming back to a place but it's not the same and it's not for the same reason um and just being open like hearing the call of the bells and being like oh this might be about a deeper narrative i've believed in my story and like finding closure for that part of me When I, yeah, I think ah every day I drive into work and I, on my favorite days, I take a highway that's got an upper deck and I drive in and I can just see the city and I see the tower and I see the stadium and I see the buildings that at both residence halls that I worked in. And I just, every day I get excited to drive to work and I'm just like,
00:43:01
Speaker
Like this place is so special to so many people and it's such a privilege and so special for me for completely different reasons.
00:43:10
Speaker
And where what was a liability and wouldn't have let me get into the school is one of my greatest assets that I offer to it every day. And I know, i know that I'm an asset and i know that I'm respected and I know that I'm sought after for certain things. And I think,
00:43:28
Speaker
That would have never happened without a goodbye. Saying goodbye to my job in Phoenix, I still have the tremor of the sadness because I don't have the same community that I had in that first job because something bad would happen and I would walk two minutes down the road and go to my best friend's house.
00:43:43
Speaker
And so that there is a difference to that and life holds a different space, but because of the goodbye, The life that is so much more.
00:43:55
Speaker
i get to live now. and and i And just the awareness that at some point, probably will say goodbye to Austin. i'd like I probably will say goodbye to some aspect of my job.
00:44:06
Speaker
don't know when or what, but every goodbye is again, that opportunity to come back to myself, to to something more, to know that because of a goodbye in one space, have a deeper and richer and fuller life. And I think you said the same thing.
00:44:22
Speaker
What that trip did, what that job did, what it has in fell up to your life to be now. It's a sweeter, deeper understanding of yourself. And we can run from goodbyes, but we are actually running from a more beautiful part of our life and a bigger invitation. And I don't want to diminish the heartbreak of those goodbyes and what and what it felt like. And that almost, I think there's a loss of innocence sometimes to a goodbye. There's loss awesome
00:44:53
Speaker
wonder and and also a mourning of this was so good for so long. and And so fighting and having resilience to protect the yes, that space, that sacredness of what that thing was is so important.
00:45:11
Speaker
I'd like be had after. Totally. i think that's really good. as i As we wrap up this conversation and kind of think about like, how are we moving forward?
00:45:22
Speaker
i I think I'm going to be exploring and I want to be journaling about like that canvas of my life and listening to it. You know, like if I'm in relationship with my life, what is it really telling me? And I don't like, I i know a goodbye is coming because I'm like transitioning into a new space of motherhood, but like, I don't even know all of what that should mean. And trusting that like my life's gonna tell me if I if I let it if i unstitch and get a little less task oriented and just a little more quiet I think my life is gonna point towards this is how you mother like this is who you are and who you can be
00:46:10
Speaker
if you choose to say goodbye in some places, if you create some openings, I think there's something really beautiful there that I want to lean into this week and coming weeks.
00:46:22
Speaker
I think for me, as I sit in the tumultuousness of of what our world looks like and and where nothing is promised and where there's change always happening in higher ed, I think there's a space for me that,
00:46:37
Speaker
that I'm not going to be afraid, as I think a lot of people in my profession are. And in the next couple weeks, I'll be traveling to a ah national conference that I'm on the board of. and um And I just, I feel it. I feel kind of the space of the fear. But I think this conversation is helping me hold that even if there's a goodbye, that comes.
00:47:01
Speaker
And if and when, I will not be afraid. because it will only be an invitation to a deeper, newer part of my life. And I just want that to echo. In every conversation where so easily we can let fear or unknown dictate our action, I can choose to not be afraid.
00:47:22
Speaker
And I can choose to be curious about the next deeper part of my life, the goodbye comes. um And to just be curious if the next painting of Austin is already formulating in my head.
00:47:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's good. I like that. Well, thank you for talking it all through with me today. hey Thank you for asking.
00:47:47
Speaker
To everybody listening, have a good week. Have great week, y'all.
00:47:53
Speaker
The Red Tent Living podcast is produced by myself, Katie Stafford, and edited by Erin Stafford. Our cover art is designed by Libby Johnson, and all our guests are part of the Red Tent Living community.
00:48:07
Speaker
You can find us all at redtentliving.com, as well as on Facebook and Instagram. If you love the stories shared here, we would be thrilled if you left us a review.
00:48:19
Speaker
Until next week, love to you, dear ones.