Transitions and changes

Ali Edwards, in one of her Studio A columns (PDF file) for Creating Keepsakes magazine talks about documenting transitions in one’s life. Every one of Ali’s layouts set off a lightbulb in my head. I’ve never been a chronological scrapper and I don’t stick to albums of particular people either. Ali’s attitude exactly suits the way I want to document the essence of the moment, the feelings, the traditions, the way we are or were at a point in time.

I am at a point of transition now. It has been crystallised by Scrapdolly’s All Work and No Play challenge. I just can’t do the challenge – the prompts are too painful. My work situation is uncertain and I’m not sure what to do for the best. I am so unsure that I took on a career counsellor, and I couldn’t even begin to answer the first set of questions she sent me.

So scrapping and journalling other times of transition in my life are strangely comforting in helping me decide where to go from here.

Here are some titles:

Transitions
Changes
What a difference a year makes
From X to Y
My new XXX
A tapestry of changes
Transformation
Differences

And some quotations to inspire:

"It is not the years but the changes that make us grow." - Neal Maxwell
"All appears to change when we change." - Henri-Frédéric Amiel
"BE the change you want to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi
"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." - James A. Baldwin
"Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me." - Carol Burnett

Here are some journalling prompts to add to Ali’s great article.

What was the most significant transition in your life?
I changed when ...
What I wish most was different is ...
When I look back, I see I coped with change by ...
If I could go back in time for just one hour and change something it would be when...