Goodbye, Hello
“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
Joseph Campbell
In December 2019, as I began to prepare for 2020, I began to think of how excited I was for the year to come. I knew it would be a big year with so many things to celebrate in my family. From me turning 40, Cailyn turning 13, Caleb turning 10, Charles turning 45, celebrating 15 years of marriage, and completing a very long, long, long process in my doctoral studies. And while we have been able to celebrate some of those milestone birthdays with much joy, some passed by with more tears and heartache than fanfare and celebration. It has been a year with more grief and sorrow than celebration and joy. In addition to the global pandemic it feels like my world has been turned upside down in every area of my life. As the year draws closer to the last quarter I’m learning to embrace whatever comes next and how to also choose what might be next.
I’ve spent so much of my life on the path, you know the road that we are told we are to follow, believing that if you follow the path carved out for you, all will be well.
But in reality, it doesn't work that way, maybe for a select few. For the majority of us we find ourselves like the Israelites in Exodus taking the round-about journey through the desert place until they realize that the journey actually is the destination.
COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on our world and community. It's disturbed our day-to-day and moved us to new ways of being and doing. It has also given us an opportunity, as Sonya Taylor reminds us, to integrate what we’ve come to see as normal: “Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate, and lack.”
In the early months, we all shifted and extended a lot of grace towards one another. But as it dragged on our anxiousness kept us wanting to return to the illusion of normal. And I get it--the pandemic has had and will continue to have an impact on our economy in many ways. So it makes sense why we wanted to return. It’s what we knew.
2020 has forced us all to take a step back and begin to ask what is important and what matters most and in many ways has pushed us to grapple with things we’ve been too tired to acknowledge and deal with. Like most folks in March, I shifted to remote working thinking it would be for a few weeks but secretly hoping it would be longer (working from home sounded like a good idea). Then the weeks turned to months and every day we took our kids to work, blurred the boundaries between home, school, and work as they went to school at the table or on the couch.
My job, like many other industries, was impacted by the pandemic and we all knew changes would eventually come. A few months ago I sat down with my supervisor, like all the other department heads, to figure out what additional cuts and changes we would need to make for the upcoming fiscal year. And as we thought through our options it became clear that we would need to make cuts, stop doing certain things, and reconfigure the department. After many drafts, conversations, and prayer I had an overwhelming sense of peace that the way forward was to restructure the department without my position.
It didn't feel like a Black Widow moment of wrestling with Hawk Eye. Rather it felt like I was handed a bowl of lemons and given the opportunity to make lemonade. So I grabbed some strawberries, simple syrup, and water to figure out what it would mean to begin again.
September 15, 2020 was my last day working at Fuller, and the transition has me pondering not just on my time at Fuller as an administrator and student but also on my life that has unfolded over the last 18 years. After I completed my BA at DePaul University, I moved to Southern California to study at Fuller in mid-September 2002, almost 18 years to the date. My mom came with me to help me get settled in. I remember feeling so afraid and very alone. I was so unsure of what it would be like to start all over, build relationships and establish a community---a sense of belonging. I knew then like I know now a shift was needed. Those closest to me know I didn't move to Pasadena to just study and follow a call, but to step away and start again. I wouldn't call it running from something so much as I'd describe it as running towards me.
I'd spent so much time on the path, trying to do the right thing, checking the boxes towards a dream handed down to me by a flawed system.
I desperately needed to step away from all the voices and perspectives to see me. I had no idea how much that one decision was me writing the introduction to Part 2, or as my son would say, my life As a Young Woman. I only planned on staying in CA to finish my MDiv and return to Chicago to work at DePaul. Yet here I am:
9 years of academically rigorous study (2002-2005, 2014-2020)
8 job changes and teams
7 different schools for my kids
6 moves
5 different certifications
4 amazing DMin professors & readers
3 cities and faith communities,
2 degrees (MDiv, DMin) and 2 kids
an ordination, a marriage, a 140lb Brazilian Mastiff
countless friends and many ups and downs along the way
18 years later and here I am---wrapping up what feels like the conclusion to this season of my life. These last 18 years have been the most rewarding and challenging. I've grown and been stretched. Figured out what it means to fall in love, learned and am still learning how to parent Black kids in America, navigate heartbreak and loss. I’ve known what it feels like to be an afterthought and learned to center myself, my story and voice. I’ve faced many disappointments and failures. I've learned how to stand when I'm knocked down and when I need to stay still and let my body heal. I’ve learned how to let people in and show them my wounds, joys, hopes, and pains. I’ve been reminded that it’s not enough to simply care for my mind and soul while leaving my body behind, I need my body on this journey. Which means I’ve had to learn how to love my body and listen to what it's trying to teach me.
I've learned to cry and to hope all in the same moments. And at different points I found myself back on that path chasing after something, a dream, an idea of what normal was supposed to be, forgetting that the journey was always supposed to lead me back to me. Back to me, not in a self-centered individualistic sort-of-way, but to embrace that I am God’s beloved and to learn to live unapologetically and authentically me.
I see now how my imagination has been captivated by normativity and following ‘the path.’ But as I begin to step off that well-work path and it has allowed me to dream new dreams and see with new eyes and I begin to imagine again. It’s been in this space that it’s given me the courage to step out on faith and begin again.
I didn’t realize that my last day at Fuller would happen in the last month of the Jewish Calendar Elul. According to Rabbi Dr. Reuven Hammer, it’s the time of the year where much soul searching is done as you prepare to enter into what’s next. I’ve done a lot of soul searching. This year, as painful as it has been, has been a year of a “Spiritual gestation. Outgrowing an old self, shedding old skin, and becoming a new self. Sacred labor. Holy work. Rebirth." (Renita Reems). So here I am ready to birth something new in my life, not a mid-life crisis but I’m for sure at the beginning of Part 3 of the Book of Life entitled This Middle Aged Woman Journey, ready to leap into the unknown with both excitement and fear.
But before I can say hello, I have to say goodbye. One thing I’m learning is that no matter when or how you say goodbye or what you are saying goodbye to, it’s important to give space to process the loss that comes with that goodbye. Over these last 18 years, Fuller has been a huge part of my life and for that I’m grateful. My time at Fuller has shaped me in ways I won’t soon forget. Over the last 18 years I have been formed and unformed and formed again through courses, dialogue and relationships and so much more along the way at Fuller. But even more importantly I’ve been shaped through the school of life outside the academy.
After my last day working at Fuller I took a trip to the beach. To give myself space to mourn all that has been happening in my life--not just a job but the closing of a book. I had to step away from my home that has been my office, school, church, happy hour, movie theater (you get the point) to say goodbye to the life I planned or rather a life that felt planned for me. The excitement and hope I have about what’s next does not take away the loss I feel as I step away from a community that has been involved in my life for nearly two decades. I hope we each continue to give ourselves the space to say goodbye and process the loss of what was as we look forward to our tomorrow. For me that means lots of tears, chocolate, tea, and really good movies that make me laugh and cry. Journal a bit, color a lot, and rips to the beach. It also means taking the time to share with my community and letting folks be on my journey of loss, hope, and all that lives in the in-between.
I move into this new season with no regrets but with a new frame of mind. With much more imagination no longer searching for me but embracing me. And I see all the bruises, scrapes, and scars from these last 18 years, and I don’t hide them but acknowledge them for what they are--battle wounds from the game of life.
I’m excited to step off the path to launch my business, Tracey Shenell Speaking | Coaching | Consulting. It’ll give me the opportunity to equip, empower, and encourage clients to reach their goals, navigate challenges, and cultivate inclusive spaces. This new phase, much like the one I began 18 years ago, is a leap of faith and I know it will allow me to do what I do best and work with individuals navigating life challenges and transitions, organizations seeking to cultivate a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment, churches pursuing racial justice, or teams learning to function more effectively. I'm both excited and scared, yet I have an active hope and faith that God will meet me in the in-between. I'm believing like the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings and Kendrick Lamar, that It's Gon' Be Alright. I hope you follow me on this journey in this next season on IG and twitter @drtraceyshenell.
I’m sure there will be many more things I’ll need to say goodbye to in the days, weeks, and months to come...but for now I’ll say Goodbye, so I can say Hello.
I'll still do some blogging here but most of it will be moved to my website so follow me there at traceyshenell.com/blog
Comments
Post a Comment