When One Door Opens, Another Closes (Life Update!)

Usually, we hear the phrase “when one door closes, another opens.” But the reverse is also true, any open door in our lives means another, inevitably, has to close. 

Sometimes that’s a welcome closure – the new job means we get to close the door on unemployment or our old, shitty job; the new relationship means we (hopefully) get to close the door on the past heartbreak; the mental health meds mean we get to close the door on the ways we weren’t functioning well without them.

But sometimes, a new door opens and it means we have to make hard choices. We have to let go of something in order to make room in our lives for something new. And even the big, cool, welcome changes can also involve grief over the things we have to set aside.

New relationships mean letting go of a certain amount of time and freedom.

New jobs mean letting go of the people you used to work with, the familiar routines, and the sense of competence you developed in that particular role.

All change means something else has to die. That’s part of why it can be so challenging.

Big Life Changes

I’ve been long overdue for this post. Things have been going on behind the scenes, and I’ve repeatedly intended to fill you in about them. And I’ve gone back and forth and back and forth about whether the doors that have opened for me mean I will have to shut this particular door for good.

Thankfully, I’m not (and have not been) ready to close the door on Settling Is Bullshit. I love this space. I created it for myself in the midst of heartache and turmoil almost four years ago now, and it has been an incredible way for me to work through things, to feel like I have wisdom to offer, and to share the inevitable ups and downs of life with anyone who might find them useful.

But a couple of big doors opened for me this year, and while I’m unwilling to fully close this door just yet, the best I can say is that I’ve left it unlocked for the past many months.

I started working in addiction treatment five months ago and then started graduate school (again) last month. It’s been glorious. And also a lot to manage. 

The job has given me the opportunity to run a really cool intensive outpatient program for women – one that combines fitness with recovery. (Which meant I picked up my personal trainer certificate this summer!) And I’ll be working towards my Master’s in Art Therapy for the next three years, doing school full time and the IOP program part time. And I couldn’t be happier about all of that.

But applying for that master’s program meant I had to spend the last year learning how to draw and paint and make “art.” I had to knock out another year of undergraduate prerequisites just to be able to apply. And I’d never taken a college-level art class before.

So, I went back to school in my forties, taking classes in things I wasn’t already good at, where I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I had to deeply confront my perfectionism and lean into the discomfort of learning new things and not being instantly good at them. It was deeply painful, and also absolutely magical.

Change Ain’t Easy

I’ve talked and written before about how I spent the majority of my life believing I couldn’t draw. Carol Dwek and the pandemic helped me realize that maybe it was possible, but that I didn’t seem to have the patience to learn. 

But then I realized I wanted to support people in using all forms of creativity to heal (i.e. to be an art therapist), so I’d have to suck it up and figure it out. 

And it was SO hard to enter a community college classroom full of sweet little eighteen year olds who’d clearly been drawing since birth, because it made me feel entirely incompetent. It was stressful, and humbling, and deeply frustrating. There were a lot of tears, y’all.

But, I persisted. And somewhere around the six week mark, I finally drew something I was genuinely proud of. 

The same thing happened in my painting class. I was stressed out and miserable for a few months, constantly confronting my sense of inadequacy and my mean inner critic. I repeatedly wanted to throw out all my painting supplies and give up entirely.

But, I persisted. And I learned that I actually love painting. And feel good at it. But it took time and effort and perseverance to get there. (If you want to see some of my work, I’ve posted things on Instagram).

Practicing What I Preach

This past year has been such an upleveling for me. An opportunity to lean into all of the shit I’ve been talking to y’all about for years: leaning into discomfort, practicing patience, trying new things, letting go of perfectionism and the fixed mindset, honoring my limitations, making brave choices, and, especially, giving myself permission to change my mind. 

There’s a lot of integrity in realizing that – the ways that I’ve lived my values and been willing to make the hard choices. But it also meant I had to let go of some shit I really didn’t want to let go of. 

Like my coaching business.

Much as I love and believe in coaching, I realized last year that entrepreneurship wasn’t for me. My particular flavor of neurodivergence means that even though I have all the skills on paper, the reality of being in charge of ALL THE THINGS was too much. And in a world where we are constantly bombarded with social media messaging and what feels like a million different voices trying to pitch one coaching program or another, I just didn’t have it in me to compete. (I hate posting reels, y’all). 

So, Joywalking was the first door to close. I closed out with my last few clients and took down the website a couple months back. And I grieved that loss deeply. But in order to open the door to my new job and then the one to grad school, something had to give. 

And even though it’s been six months since I’ve created any content for Settling Is Bullshit, I’m not actually prepared to close this door. 

It’s Okay to Set Things Down

Over the past year, I’ve also had the opportunity to confront a lot of black and white thinking. This or that. All or nothing. Taking the job felt like I had to shut down everything else. Starting school then felt like I had to quit the job. 

And, y’all, I have cried in multiple coaching and therapy sessions trying to figure out what to do with Settling Is Bullshit. I love this space. And I also don’t have the bandwidth to keep it running in any substantive way.

But I’m coming to terms with the idea that setting something down doesn’t mean I’ll never pick it back up again. Sure, my ADHD means that I often set projects aside because I lose interest or the magical juice of hyperfocus just disappears all of a sudden. And that’s often frustrating and sad.

However, as I’m sitting here typing all of this up, I’m getting to experience the reality that I can, actually, come back to things and find them nourishing. And I don’t have to be all in or all out. Sometimes things can be murky.

The door to my coaching business is closed. I made that official. But I renewed the Settling is Bullshit website and the podcast hosting service. I’m clearly not ready to say goodbye.

I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know if I’ll keep recording episodes, or just go back to writing posts, or set this aside indefinitely. Whatever it is, I think we’ve entered the slow burn phase of things. The intermittent reward phase. The “this is now just a hobby anyway” phase. 

So, this isn’t goodbye. But I’m not going to make any promises about what’s to come.

I want to thank you for being along for the ride. The messages and comments I’ve received from y’all over the years about what you’ve gotten from my work have really stayed with me. (Literally. I write them down on little slips of paper and put them in a jar to pull out when I’m feeling low).  

I want you to know that I’m still here, still kicking around trying to make the world a better place in whatever ways I can.  

And I really want you to remember that you are loved and worthy and absolutely fucking awesome – always and forever.