Quotes About Transition

man who dropped into New York State on a carpetbag

Because the 40s, as writer Barbara Fried so succinctly captures them, are a time when it seems no matter what course one has pursued, "everything is turning gray, drying up or leaving home.

And somewhere between the late thirties and early forties when we enter midlife, we also have the opportunity for true adulthood, whereupon we proceed either to wither inside our husks or to regather and re-pot ourselves for the flowering into our full authenticity.

Life after adolescence is not one long plateau. Changes are not only possible and predictable, but to deny them is to be an accomplice to one's own unnecessary vegetation.

Trying to stabilize—that is what the twenties are all about. The

Further discomfort from these new realities afflicts men who expected to reach a certain level by dint of their white maleness but who now have to make room for women and minorities as well as their own generational bulge. The old boy network doesn't help them much anymore.

No matter how different the forms we choose, our concentration during the Trying Twenties is on mastering what we feel we are supposed to do.

As men and women enter midlife, the tables begin to turn. Many men I interviewed found themselves wanting to learn how to be responsive.

You can't take everything with you when you leave on the midlife journey. You are moving away. Away from institutional claims and other people's agenda. Away from external valuations and accreditations, in search of an inner validation. You are moving out of roles and into the self.

THE TRYING TWENTIES CONFRONTS US WITH THE QUESTION of how to take hold in the adult world. Incandescent with our molten energies, having outgrown the family and the formlessness of our transiting years, we are impatient to pour ourselves into the exactly right form—our own way of living in the world.

It's harder than I imagined, to be alone. I suppose I might get used to it, like an empty canvas you slowly begin to fill.

Nothing ever stands still," she told them. "And neither should you.

I knew the sense of integrity I had long admired in him had died, and that I was already grieving for its loss.

It's harder than I imagined, to be alone. I supposed I might get used to it, like an empty canvas you slowly begin to fill.

Nothing ever stands still, and neither should you.

Just remember that life is made up of change. We can't run away from it.

We're stepping into a new world, and an entire way of thinking must be changed. But the old ideas can't be easily discarded. Like a pendulum, new ways must swing to the other side before returning.

He has joined the great majority.

It is difficult suddenly to lay aside a long-cherished love.

That which is grows, while that which isnot becomes.

was Lilah, well, that was almost too

When a group of people get up from a table, the table doesn't know which way any of them will go.

He died that day because his body had served its purpose. His soul had done what it came to do, learned what it came to learn, and then was free to leave.

We had a good run, and now it's over; what's wrong with that?