What Does Change and Transformation Look Like Now?

Theme song: Jump Into the Fire

Every new year, I set a theme. I decided 2015 would be the Year of Change and Transformation. Then, on a jaunt to Chinatown--a magical place if ever there was one--I found on the ground a small metal butterfly.

Not two hours later, a fortune cookie delivered this message: "You will make many changes before settling down happily." I'm excited about the settling down happily part, but I am contenting myself for the time being with the many changes predicted by that sage cookie!

So. This year, my older son entered high school and my younger son entered middle school. They are going to separate schools for the first time in eight years.

One thing I wanted to offer my boys in the wake of their parents' divorce was stability, and I believe their school has been that for them. Which is great because there were (inevitable?) emotional ups and downs following that painful breakup.

Now, it's easy to see that the needs of a middle school boy and a high school pre-man are radically different and, each morning, when they leave my home, they will head in opposite directions to sort of prove it.

Their dad got married this year, as well, and that changed family dynamics in ways both subtle and radical, solidifying his life and also cementing the conscious uncoupling between us (thanks, Goop!). Looking from the outside, his life, inasmuch as lives are, seems wrapped up with a bow: corporate job, wife, two cars, three-bedroom/two-bathroom single family home, healthy kids, golf on the weekends.

Following my divorce, I set a goal to survive in this city, and survive I have. If you're reading this, chances are rent and wifi have been paid, food bought and consumed.

I am restructuring my company this year, going from a freelance solopreneur model to a "boutique" outsourced digital marketing agency model. The need is real need and I, along with my team, know how to fill it. It feels right.

Did I ever think I'd have a team to call my own? No. Life, as we know, is what happens when you're busy making other plans. Or, in my case, it's what happens when you're putting one foot in front of the other while trying to tweet native images via Instagram. I'm getting there!

As for me, I can see an empty nest on the horizon. Granted, it won't be for another seven or so years, but it's coming.

The next task is to move from survival to surthrival. Surthrival, a made up word, is that state in which you have walked through fire, you understand fire is always on the way, but, because you've been there, you know that fire is just fire: bright, beautiful, dangerous, sometimes painful, renewing.

Knowing all that, you know to access the parts of yourself that are solid--earth and rock. The parts that can be scorched but not destroyed, whatever happens.