Change is notoriously difficult for me and always has been. My mother enjoys entertaining friends and party guests with stories about my struggles with change: how upset I was when my little brother was born, how I cried at the end of Kindergarten. The fact is, I cried at the end of pretty much every stage of my life. I was happy to finish High School but it didn’t keep me from crumbling into a weepy mass of misery when I couldn’t find my family in the crowd (fortunately a compassionate friend was there to calm me down). At the end of College, there was nothing I wanted more than to get out of that place and never go back. Yet, one of the only pictures I have of that day is me in my suit and tie, standing in front of a window, looking like a lost and frightened child, the rain-washed light removing the little color left in my face. Even one of the best days of my life so far, my wedding day, was preceded by several weeks of melt-downs and lost appetite.
So today, I want to take a big step, and talk about how I appreciate change. Unlike my other posts, this is less of a “I love that you are part of my world” sort of Thank You and more of a “I will learn to love that you are a part of my world, because I will be happier once I embrace you” sort of Thank You. And this post is itself part of the learning process, which I acknowledge would only be possible because of the recipient of this Thank You. How’s that for making a full circle?
Resentful as I’ve always been of change, I’ve also always been an advocate, a true believer. Sort of like those people who believe in aliens, search for aliens, but are constantly terrified of being abducted. I mean, I majored in Psychology, with the full intention of eventually going on to graduate school. How can you have more faith in change than that?
It’s October now, and I wrote the above paragraphs in early July, as if some little part of me already suspected what I would shortly discover. My life is about to change forever. My identity will never be as it was on the day that I wrote my introduction to Change. Also, as seems appropriate for this topic, the point of this entry is changing from a thank you, to an announcement. An announcement that I will drop into the abyss that is the internet, to rattle around down there and probably never be heard from again.
I am going to be a mother.