Apologies for my silence—it’s been a rough few weeks. So far this year has kicked me in the ass—just a few too many challenges all at once for my own personal sanity. So I’m not really holding it together very well, to say the least. I won’t go into the gory details here, but at least I’ve hit a period of relative calm now, in my new home. We didn’t intend to move, at least, not until we were ready and it was a good time for us. But sometimes those decisions get made for you, at the worst possible times. So in this post I wanted to talk about change.
I love making transitions, at least once I decide to make them and I’m sorting my way through. It’s like forging a new path when you’re tired of the scenery in the old one. But when change is made for you, against your wishes, that’s another story.
I’ve heard many people say through the years that “everything happens for a reason.” (Thanks, Celestine Prophecy!) Which is great and I’m sure in retrospect this is true. But when you feel like life is out of your control and there’s not much you can do about it but ride the storm and see where you end up, it’s the last thing you want to hear. I’d rather have someone offer me a strong cocktail. But maybe that’s just me.
But change isn’t the enemy. I know this. Change is a catalyst, even when we have know idea what kind of trajectory our lives may take next. It shifts the energy, it makes things move. It is not complacent. We can’t feed it excuses or convince it to move on to someone else. It happens to all of us, at different times in our lives. So instead of getting upset about it and fighting it, I understand I have to work within its constraints. Change has a plan, separate from mine.
I was watching my new favorite channel HGTV (don’t judge, it has a lot of good renovation tips…). In it, a young couple (both schoolteachers and shuffleboard players—I think that says something) were getting married and looking to buy their first house together. But they didn’t look at this purchase as a step in a new direction, they looked at it as the finish line. They wanted to buy a house that they would live in forever—like, until they grew old and died. And they were only in their late twenties. I was shocked. When did twenty-somethings start thinking this way? That they could get married and buy a five-bedroom house together, anticipating that they’d have a bunch of kids and would keep their jobs until they retired? Who knows if they’d fill that house with offspring, or get divorced, get laid off, or change careers and cities? How is it even possible to think in “forever” terms these days?
While I have no idea what will happen to them, I did feel better knowing that I embraced change a little more than they did. I was more prepared for setbacks and last-minute cancellations than they would be. But did that make me happier in my day-to-day life, thinking about how my plans might get screwed up? No. So maybe I could learn something from the young schoolteachers. Like it’s okay to make plans and assume good things will happen, instead of preparing yourself for setbacks along the way. You never know what’s going to happen, so why bother with endless predicting and preparing?
There’s a balance in here somewhere. And I still respect change, even embrace it. But right now, a normal, boring routine feels even better.
About Kelly Seal
Kelly is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, CA. She blogs about dating, relationships, personal growth and what "healthy living" means to her. You can follow her on Google+, Twitter @kellyseal or through her website www.kellyseal.com.
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