Change

There are some changes going on at my workplace right now that are probably hard for some folks and exciting for others. It’s made me start thinking about my own attitude toward change. I’ve always moved a lot… since the age of eight, it’s been a habit to up and move every three years or so. I had to fight the urge to transfer to another school when I was in college when that familiar restlessness crept in. The biggest change of my life thus far happened in 2008, though, with the non-move. Having everything decided and then at the last minute experiencing a clear-as-a-bell divine intervention into those perfectly made plans (leaving you with no money, no place to live, no transportation, and no job) gives you a big, heaping dose of change.

Everything was thrown for a loop that year. All of my expectations, all of everyone else’s expectations (be they real or imagined by me), everything was completely shattered… and I use the word shattered because at times it was very painful for me. There were a lot of tears shed. A lot of confusion. A lot of surrender. The echoes of that divine intervention still reach into my life today. Whenever I find myself growing despondent over the fact that I’m “not where I should be” at this point in life, I just have to look back and remember that August day. I asked for it. He gave me what I asked for. Shouldn’t start complaining now.

All of that to say, I think that I might have learned a preliminary lesson or to about learning to accept life change. Not that tomorrow something couldn’t fly out of left field and leave me reeling, but I guess I’ve learned what to do with the reeling. Where to take it. Who to take it to. It makes it feel less threatening and more like an adventure. And really it is an adventure, and it’s not threatening, because when you take a moment to step back from your life and remember that you’re not in control of hardly anything anyway (even though we do such a good job of convincing ourselves otherwise!), then it’s a freefall into an existence of unexpected adventures and soul-making surprises. There’s freedom in that, folks.