I was a pretty active Tumblr user from 2009-2012.
You should’ve been there. It was a great time. A much more lighthearted internet. The fandoms. The memes. I made a lot of online friends, some of whom morphed into real world friends. Imagine that!
I also learned a lot about Dr. Who.
I didn’t actually watch Dr. Who at the time. I felt like I didn’t need to. They had such an active fanbase online and I have this unusual talent of being able to fake my way into a fan base. I can absorb enough lingo and information from other people’s conversations to discuss shows I’ve never seen. I’ve been a poser Game of Thrones guy, a Breaking Bad faker, and of course, an imposter Whovian.
I used this superpower as a running gag, to be obnoxious to a friend who knew I hadn’t actually seen an episode. It was a good bit! A good run for many years. And I decided to eventually put it to rest by watching the legacy BBC series for real.
I picked up with its 2005 relaunch and worked my way through several seasons.
And now, I’ve been thinking about Dr. Who quite a bit. Specifically, his thing for regeneration.
In case you didn’t know, every time they replace the lead actor, the Doctor dies. He has the ability to regenerate in a new body, which is a pretty convenient way to keep a show running for half a century. Still, this usually ends up being a pretty sentimental episode, with season finale-level stakes and often an emotional parting of that Doctor and their companion.
Our actual lives sometimes have moments like that.
A lot of life’s changes are gradual, but sometimes you get a graduation. A move. A sudden loss. Moments that feel like death and rebirth. I started mapping out times in my life that were like that.
Finishing college. Moving to Oregon. Moving out of Oregon. Becoming a dad. Having twins and becoming a dad to three.
That last one was over four years ago, and since then, the tentpoles of my life have been pretty solidly planted. Until just now.
Regeneration itself absolutely fascinates me.
I’ve spent the past decade as a spokesperson for a faith-based environmental organization. We helped rural communities around the globe, largely through regenerative agriculture. I loved the uncommon pairing of faith and ecology.
Regeneration beautifully synthesizes the scientific and the spiritual.
Decomposing remains go into the soil to be digested by worms. Things stay quiet for a while, then life emerges. It’s a vital process that keeps life going on our planet. And it’s one that mirrors life.
Above ground, there’s the journey from life to death. That’s the visible part of the journey.
But the part that’s unseen, is the circling back. Death to life.
It’s beautiful but it isn’t convenient. All the stuff that happens under the soil happens in the cover of darkness. It’s a struggle to find the light.
There’s more mystery than answer, but this process and pattern gets mirrored all throughout nature and all throughout life when you pay attention.
A few months ago, I had this moment of deep and uncomplicated gratitude for what life looked like at the moment.
I loved my job. I saw my role evolve with me. I grew in parallel with a mission I believed in.
I love the adventures I got to go on. Sometimes for work, sometimes just by saying yes to things.
I loved my community. The struggles of making friends during the years of early parenthood are well documented. But somehow, the past few years were full of good connections.
And of course, I loved my family. Having three kids within two years of each other will make for a wild and busy time. But it was such a good time full of sweetness. And as I began the process of registering my twins for school, it occurred to me that things were about to change pretty significantly.
We’d been at the same daycare center for six years. We were thankful for that time, but the upcoming transition to school would be a game-changer for both our schedules and wallets.
I briefly wondered if that might trigger some other new beginning, like exploring new roles at work or launching new projects. Something to add a new challenge to a life that had gotten more and more comfortable over the years and that was about to get a lot more open.
I decided, we should punt that decision a little further down the road. After all, the past few years were so packed and chaotic. It was a good chaos, but still chaos. Having a lighter year of coasting might not be so bad.
There were some little whispers that changes were coming. And while I mistook those for my usual curiosity, turns out they were small signals that a whole lot of changes were headed my way.
I left Plant With Purpose in February. Parted on the best of terms, mutually cheering for each other’s success. But still, leaving a niche you’ve carved out for a decade doesn’t happen easily. And in my case, this happened during a season that was already difficult.
That winter, I had to stomach a trio of tragedies. Three deaths in my circles. Plus the usual weight of the world.
Different actors in Doctor Who have played their regeneration scenes differently. Some lean into the fact that they are physically dying. Some display acceptance. Others fight it.
All these changes felt like the end of David Tennant’s run, where he individually visits almost all of his supporting characters to offer a meaningful sendoff, then expresses simply… I don’t want to die.
Not to be dramatic, or anything, but I didn’t exactly want to leave a season of life where I had so much fun.
Now I find myself in a wild new chapter of life.
I’ve got my next adventure ahead of me. It’ll take new forms, but I’ll still be using the power of telling stories and strategic messaging to support our planet. Clean air. Healthy oceans. Safe communities. I’ve laid the groundwork for new opportunities in social impact storytelling, and I’m ready to begin building.
The kids will all be in school together in a couple months, and that’ll be a game-changer.
Regeneration is beautiful. But it isn’t pretty.
A large part of this process includes death, breakdown, and decomposition. At the moment, it’s disorienting and frustrating.
But it’s also a gift. A gift to begin again.
Our lives aren’t quite like movies, where the story needs to end once all the problems are solved. They’re more like comic books, where you take care of one bad guy, but the small details unearthed along the way will turn into a new problem to be dealt with in the next issue.
Whenever a storyline runs its course, life has a way of forcing us to begin again. To take the old parts and to make something new. And isn’t that so much better than just growing stale with the same old plot?
It’s such a gift that we get one story after another after another.