Change

Take a word of advice. Don't fight change. One of my favorite Little Women quotes sums it up perfectly. "Change will come as surely as the seasons and twice as quickly. We must make our peace with it as best as we can or as Amy said when she was still a little girl, "We all have to grow up someday. We might as well know what we want.""

Change is inevitable. Sometimes it is wonderful like when you learn to ride a bike or start going to high school. Sometimes it is sad. Like losing a loved one or classmate. I have been very fortunate in my life to have had very little loss but the loss I have experienced taught me that life and death are always one heartbeat apart...every moment is truly precious.

While sad change is difficult, I think the most difficult change we face is often the change that brings the unknown. One of the greatest moments of “unknown” occurred for me in my last few months of college. Due to some poor decisions and hurt feelings (on my part) my best friend and I were no longer going in the same direction. On top of our quarrel she had become a rather Negative Nancy and her constant gloom and doom was beginning to affect me in some not so great ways. I decided that it would be best to leave her behind as a friend, however, by leaving her I had to leave several other things behind too. It’s too complicated to go into completely but basically, I was closing an entire chapter of my life with no way of going back. I wasn’t burning one bridge I was setting the whole town on fire. I was losing friends, social circles, roommates and even a job. I had no clue what I was doing and it scared me to death. What I did know is that this friendship had become toxic and that scared me more than the unknown.

That being said it took me a long time to break those ties and I now know that I was willing to deal with my friend for those last nine months because, as miserable as I was with her, I had no clue what life would hold once I left. Change can bring growing pains and that is exactly what I had...growing pains of the worst kind…the kind that no aspirin can help.

However, life has this funny way of steadily moving on regardless of your condition. I found a job and changed jobs. I changed friends and gained friends. Every little thing was a step towards today, towards this moment sitting here writing this as the person I am now and I don’t regret it. I actually mark it as one of the best decisions I have made because of the new trajectory it created.

My life is definitely not what I imagined long ago but it is mine and that is a wonderful feeling. It may not look like I thought it would but I have learned that if you allow God (and life) to surprise you fabulous things can happen.