Change. Transition. Instability.
Three of my least favorite words.
I live in a color coded, labeled, organized, controlled world. Everything has a place and is in that place. Everyone has a box in my mind, and they stay in that box.
Change. Is. Difficult. And not welcomed in my household.
It’s scary. Its uncertain. It’s uncomfortable. And I hate it.
Yet….I find myself craving it.
Quite often.
And I have come to realize that change can have different meanings, and I am pretty certain that I have experienced many of them in the past year of my life.
It’s been challenging, but it’s also been extremely eye opening in this season of my life.
Change can mean grief.
In the past year, I lost one of my dearest friends in a helicopter crash, and I also lost my grandfather who was a solid rock for our family. I’m still not really ready to write and be honest about how I feel about either of those losses, but I am ready to acknowledge that it happened and that I am still grieving.
Grief is a weird, unwelcomed guest, and it comes to sleep on your couch and inhabit your space when you don’t expect it.
Like when you’re buying eggnog in Kroger and remember the last time you bought eggnog it was for Clayton to try….or when you get your Christmas decorations out and find the Christmas bear Papaw bought you last year. I used to fight the tears and push through any emotion that came up so that it seemed like I had my shit together, but recently I have sat with my emotions and allowed myself to feel them.
Grief causes a large hole in your life that wasn’t there before.
A change. A ripple. A transition. A new normal. Where you learn to live your life without the person you are grieving, and search for any way to still feel connected to them, even when they’re not here.
It’s a feeling that is not comprehendible or able to be articulated most of the time. It comes in distressing waves, and the feeling changes with each tide.
This change is a hard one to accept. It’s one that I still cannot welcome, but it’s one that I also know I must learn to survive through.
Change can mean instability.
Control is very important to me. I want to have a plan for the next month, week, year, day, hour. Whatever I can plan, I want to plan it, and I want that plan to go as planned.
That almost never happens, lets be honest, but I like to imagine that when I plan something, I have control over it.
In the past year, my husband and I have made, and are still making, a lot of choices for our future. We stopped taking birth control, and transitioned to natural family planning (which was a terror to let go of control of all in itself). I decided to undergo genetic testing to see if I had a mutated gene that increases my risk for breast cancer (I don’t, but it was fearsome). In December, I will leave my job of four years in order to finish my practicum and I will begin nannying for a sweet family that I am so grateful for.
But, that means instability.
That means less flexibility in our finances. That means fear of the unknown.
We are both graduating from graduate school in May, and have started discussing what life is going to look like after that. Guess what? We don’t know for certain what that is going to look like. There is no way to certainly plan it. There is no guidebook for this avenue of life. No map. Not even any suggested routes. That’s terrifying, right?
I am learning to really let go when I say I do, and pray, and trust that our lives are in the best of hands. My plan can only go so far, and sometimes instability or fear of the unknown actually turns into growth.
Change can mean growth.
Growing is a change that I value, and I have come to find it’s something that is constant in my life.
Change is constant in my controlled, color coded life. Isn’t that a funny concept?
This is the change that I crave. The change that I know will always be a prominent factor for me.
In my professional life, growth looks like a lot of training, shadowing, doing the grunt work, and putting myself in new situations where I don’t know everything. I have to force myself to get outside my comfort zone so that I can learn from other people who have an incredible wealth of knowledge to share. You’re running a report that I have never seen before? Let me watch and learn how to do that. You’re talking about the budget? I want in on that meeting. You got promoted? Awesome. Tell me how you did that. I want all the tools in my toolbox to be as well-rounded as possible, and I welcome the guidance and feedback from others.
In my personal life, growth looks a lot different. Growth and change for me as a person involves a lot of reflection about myself, how I present myself, how I communicate, and how I impact others. I look back now on 15 or 16-year-old me, and think about how much I would not have liked her. She wasn’t nice and she wasn’t considerate and she didn’t reflect on her words and actions. Now, every chance I get to reflect on myself and what I am presenting to the world, I do it. It’s not fun to look at what you do, and think, “I was wrong there, I need to make a change next time”, but it is so beneficial to be self-aware. I am a much more direct and effective communicator now. I listen to others and take the time to be empathetic and understanding. I don’t let anything go unresolved. I am learning to pivot when necessary. I am learning to surround myself with people who uplift, inspire, and foster growth in me, but also who I can foster growth in as well.
I value the differences, and uniqueness in others, and I am learning to value the differences and uniqueness in myself.
I cannot be stagnant.
I will not be unmoved. There are mountains for a reason, and I fully intend on moving them.
I won’t say I embrace change, or that you should always embrace every little change you encounter.
I won’t even say that I tolerate change.
I will say that I am learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
I am learning to welcome the entire abandon.
