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The scene: A spring afternoon on a concrete patio with metal tables and chairs, close to the train tracks. A slight breeze keeps me worried that I should have brought more than my thin sweater, worried enough that I order a hot drink in spite of the sunny weather. A large dog lays with his head between his paws, gazing with eyes big enough that many of his actions automatically become characterized as mournful even though that’s not his personality at all.
My friend is telling me about a conversation she had with a customer service representative over the phone. After explaining recent events and how they pertained to the issue in discussion, the woman told her, “Don’t worry, now you’re getting the chance to start over.”
I say, “Don’t we all start over at one point or another?”
***
I have thrown away a bowl full of leaden gingerbread dough. I have discarded ten thousand words and started a novel from scratch (and felt grateful it was only that many). I have graduated, I have moved, I have ended relationships, rekindled relationships, started relationships. I have obtained employment, lost employment, quit, and changed careers. I have opened and closed a business. I have walked out of a lobby at a convention and sat for twenty minutes in my hotel room before coming back out and starting again. I have spent months recovering from physical injuries, only to re-injure myself and go back to the beginning of the process. I have rebooted my computer, my phone, huge strands of my life.
So I guess you could say I start over a lot.
***
A friend of mine moved recently, and in the process, she got rid of a ton of stuff. She hardly has any books left (she mostly reads electronically these days), most of her kitchen cabinets are empty, she’s getting rid of big pieces of furniture. I thought to myself, “Wow. This is the way to start over.”
By contrast, when I start over, I tend to carry everything with me: my experiences, my memories, my baggage, and physical mementos from the past. It’s certainly the bulkier way to go. But there is no one right way to start over. There is the way that feels right at the time.
My kitchen cabinets are full. But I do have an empty bookshelf.
***
The title of this post suggests that I’m going to offer up advice or maybe a list of ten bullet points summing up the process of starting over. But this time I don’t have a list for you.
Starting over is hard. A lot of that is because of the fear that often comes with it, the fear and the not knowing and the what if game. And starting over is stressful. If you look at the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, you’ll see that almost all of the most stressful events in life have to do with change: beginnings, endings, and starting over.
So really when we’re talking about how to start over, we’re also talking about how to be kind to ourselves and how to be resilient and how to deal with stress.
When have you started over?
The Practical Free Spirit 
When i start over, it’s necessary to discard something, or i’m bound to repeat the thing that made me start over. Sometimes it’s an idea, Sometimes a person, sometimes it’s stuff. Figuring out what is the hard part though, and i have no guidelines from experience.
It’s true, if you don’t know *why* you’re starting over or what change(s) to make, that would be dicey. But I guess that’s why sometimes it takes several times. And of course, in other situations, you start over just fine, but then something else changes and you want/need to make another change.
Starting over is seldom done for fun. By definition, therefore it is a pretty stressful time. If you’ve had to do so much of it, you have my sympathy
Well, thanks for your sympathy, but I think it does depend on the situation. I do agree that it is pretty much always stressful, but sometimes it’s really positive and exciting from the get-go (I get to move to Paris! I get to work on my own business full-time!), whereas other times, like Taylor said, it takes some time to get to the positive or silver lining. And then there are some starting over situations that just flat-out suck (like deaths of loved ones, for example).
I keep track like any good programmer, and am currently on version 4.2 of my life. Minor revisions have included changes in religion, philosophy, ethics, diet, and lifestyle. Major revisions have included a name change, a move from one coast to the other, and a divorce. Every major revision was incredibly stressful on day 1, yet immensely satisfying by day 30.
I love that you know your version number. And I would agree that most of my major revisions have been stressful but ultimately very positive. I try as much as possible to live with no regrets. 🙂
Thank you for placing the value in being resilient.
You rock!!
Hey! I was there! 🙂
Starting over is hard. And terrifying. And exhausting. And exciting. And… yes. Beginnings and endings are hard. And starting over is both in one.
I find starting over to be difficult not only because it is almost never really a clean break, but also because I feel the pain of the time and effort “wasted”.
I’ve changed computers several times in my life. I’ve had to start over several times my smartphone in the last month due to technical problems.
As a kid, I moved between states. Then 4 years later I changes houses. I changed schools several times (new school opening and changing between elementary, middle, and high school) and it was never entirely the same classmates each time.
I went away to college and lived in a dorm. Years later I went back to a different college but as a commuter.
In the span of one year (2006), I went through two relationships, changed jobs, moved out of my parent’s home, moved back in temporarily for 2 weeks, then moved out again to another place.
But I think the biggest changes have usually been slow, not abrupt. Sometimes they weren’t even starting over; more like shifting direction. Maybe that has the problem for me sometimes – maybe they weren’t abrupt enough?
On the other hand, sometimes the big changes haven’t actually changed anything. In elementary school, I went to one school for 2nd and 3rd grade. A new school opened and I went there for 4th and 5th grade. The school was a different layout with different teachers in a different part of town and about half of my peers were different. But who I was and the difficulties I had didn’t really change. Some significant life events happened at that second school, but there is no reason they could not have happened had I stayed at the first.
I suppose there might only be two times in my life where I really felt like I started over: when I moved between states and when I left college for the first time. The interstate move was an break with the past that no subsequent change of residence comes close to matching. When I left college a decade ago, it was really the only time my world was shattered. Dealing with my failure and its ramifications started a slow deconstruction of my life and who I was. If not a sudden break, it was one of the most monumental events – a rebooting process that didn’t wipe the hard drive but was definitely a moment of starting over.
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