I just returned from moving my younger daughter across the country for her first year of college (insert bittersweet tears here). The school had a gathering for us new parents with several of the big wig Deans giving us a pep talk, of sorts, that all of our many dollars were being well invested (insert anxious tears here).  The President of the College, Philip J. Hanlon, however, had a bit of good advice for us that I appreciated most of all. It made a lot of sense to me and for anyone making a big change.

“Your son or daughter will probably be calling you at some point to say they don’t fit in,” he warned us.  It may be after their first exam when they get a lower grade than they are used to, when they get a paper back with more red ink then they have seen in all of high school or when they look around and feel everyone else looks fine and they feel so very different.  Just remind them at those moments that they did not come here to fit in, he encouraged us. They chose their school to be challenged and to expand their skills and experiences. They will need to work hard and to ask for help. They will need to tolerate being uncomfortable and feeling inadequate.  They will need to give it time and to trust the process (my words). With all of that, eventually, they will grow and change to a new identity that fits in with their new surroundings.

As a constant student of change, I loved being reminded of these words to say to my daughter or to anyone going through a change.  And to remind myself when I’m trying something new and feel I don’t fit in. When it is a change you choose to make it is no doubt easier.  You have a vision and a goal to motivate your change. You feel your expansion to fit a new identity is in an “upward” direction. But sometimes the change we must adapt to is not wanted and not asked for.  No one wants to take on the identity of a widow, an ill patient, or being unemployed. But these indeed are new identities that require us to build new skills and tolerate anxiety and insecurity. Although we didn’t sign up for it we still inevitably must learn through periods of loneliness and self doubt how to manage and where we need to alter ourselves.  The same holds true as well for the process of change whether it is chosen or not – that it takes time, hard work, and it is best to ask for help.  

I clearly remember feeling in my first year of college, my first year of graduate school, seeing my first clients (sorry, I did my best), my first year of marriage, and my first year of motherhood (sorry, I did my best), that I did not fit in.  Same was true in my first year of caretaking my mother, looking for a job after being laid off, and being an adult orphan. Whenever we go through a change, we ourselves need to change. Our identities, capacities, opinions, and perspectives inevitably do change along with us.  By definition and by necessity, we are not the same. We no longer fit in to who we were, but expand out to become who we are now.