I’ve lost a bunch of hats, and my head feels funny!

If you had to come up with one word to describe yourself or your current situation in life, what would it be? I can imagine coming up with one word might actually prove to be very difficult.

If you are like most, you’re wearing any number of hats on any given day given your current situation…parent, spouse, employee, employer, entrepreneur, chauffeur of children, coach of your son or daughter’s team, caretaker of a child, a spouse or a parent…and the list goes on and on.

Those hats change every so often, and especially when you enter each new season in life. From being young parents, to middle-aged married beings with high school or college kids and very busy schedules, to empty nesters to retirees; each season can bring about change that is gradual or very swift, but regardless of either, it brings about a change in the hats we wear.

I’ve come to the conclusion that these past few months, while I’ve been tackling time management alongside puppy rearing and playtime, I’ve also been tackling something I hadn’t realized was even an obstacle. That obstacle was my inability to realize that my expectations in life were drawn from how I managed myself when I was wearing previous hats, in previous seasons, under previous situations.

I failed to realize that I was undergoing a transition.

In my last post I commented on warmer days or my next vacation and, honestly, those days were just right around the corner because I left only a week later for a vacation in a warmer state to celebrate my birthday. And this wasn’t just any birthday; it was a big one. One of those birthdays you say doesn’t really bother you, because your age is just a number, right? Honestly, it really didn’t bother me, until I got to thinking more seriously about it.

What got me thinking more seriously about it was the fact that I’ve entered a new season, but my mindset might not have caught up to the idea that my life has changed quite a bit. My life is not what it was before when I wore all those hats as a busy mom, wife and daughter, who also worked for someone else or for herself while running her own business. I’m not an empty nester yet, but it’s close, and while I enjoy spending time with my husband, and having a puppy feels like having a child again (pure understatement, really J), my schedule is not wrapped around what everyone else in the household is doing or what an employer requires of me.

My schedule is my own.

That one little fact in addition to the entry into a new decade has left me just a little breathless. All those hats I use to wear, which we all know can get a little heavy sometimes since women are so terrible at finding time to take them all off to care for themselves, have dwindled down to just a few. Imagine, rather than the idiom reference, if you wore one real hat every single day for a whole year, how would your head feel when you finally took it off? It may feel very much like what it is to suddenly not be so many things to so many other people.

While I have been more committed to self care the past year or so, I thought it was just because I had finally realized how absolutely necessary it was. However, it may have been my way of preparing for the upcoming transition I was going to go through. I just hadn’t realized it at the time.

Being so many things to so many people for awhile begins to feel normal, maybe because the constant pull in so many directions gives a false sense of feeling grounded. But when change occurs and you’re not pulled in all different directions, you may feel a little off balanced if some of the tugging suddenly stops. That’s how I visually see things when it comes to what some women must feel like when this sort of transition occurs.

Writing is one way that keeps me grounded, which may seem funny since my books are all fiction. I also have a number of ways to focus on self care, such as journaling, yoga, and so forth, but as with anything, I’ll learn as I go to determine what works best for me. A transition also means change or evolution, which also means progression and development. It means learning more about yourself and evolving as you continue to move forward. It also means, no matter what age you are, how many hats you wear or what season you’re in, what you learn about yourself will help you through each transition and hopefully as you move on into the next.

Whatever season you’re in, however many hats you wear, I hope you take time to focus on self care and find what also keeps you grounded so that when all the tugging suddenly stops, you don’t find yourself unbalanced and flat on your back.