Change

I've been thinking a lot about change lately-- about how difficult it can be, how exciting and stressful, how scary and exhilerating, and how often we try to prevent it with everything that we are.  

3 weeks ago, John and I were in New York visiting my parents, and we were sitting at a restaurant having lunch and discussing how great it would be if we were closer, if life were different, if we could visit more often and not have it involve a 5 and a half hour drive to get there.  How much we wished things could change.  Within a week, I had applied at a new job, gotten an interview, then a second interview, and how 3 weeks and one day later we are moving up there.  This enormous, impossible change that we were wistfully daydreaming about is happening.  We have passed the point of no return and we are moving, in less than a month.  In less than a month we will be Vermonters, we will be living in a bigger house than we have ever lived in together.  We will be starting new jobs.  We basically are changing everything about our lives; stepping way out of our comfort level and trying something different.  And I love it.  It takes my breath away.  

All of the biggest celebrations, all the noteworthy events in our lives are based on change.  Passing from one year to the next we celebrate birthdays, we celebrate graduations, we celebrate moving from childhood into adulthood, we celebrate new jobs, we celebrate lives when people pass on.  Marriages, retirements, even holidays.  It's all about change.  

How funny, then, that it is so scary.  That we don't let ourselves change when it is the thing our lives need most.  I applied for this job in Burlington on a whim, thinking to myself that the economy was in the shitter and there was no way this would happen.  It was just an extension of my daydream-- just something to do.  But it changed everything.

You really can change your life just by changing your mind.

John and I moved to Massachusetts to begin something brand new.  We moved here for different opportunities, for school and for life.  We came here and we struggled, and we grew, and we learned how to love each other more.  We became a unit in a way we hadn't ever been before.  We fell in love again, with each other and with ourselves.  We became a family with our cats.  We found true friends.  When he graduated in May, we knew our time here was ending, we just weren't sure how to move on.  And I think each day since then, we've been leaving a little bit.  Saying goodbye to people and places that made our time here what it was.  But we were stuck.  We didn't know what to do next.  It was confusing and overwhelming.  We were hamsters stuck on a wheel.  We made just enough to pay the bills for the month and have a little fun, but none to save.  It seemed impossible that we would ever be able to leave.  We began to hate it here.  We hated the commutes, our jobs.  We hated our apartment, the neighbors.  And then all of a sudden, we took a leap of faith.  We did something crazy, that we knew couldn't work out.  But it did.  We changed out minds about what was possible for us.  And we made a new future.  It isn't the one we had in mind, going north instead of south.  But it feels right.  It feels exciting.  And it feels different.  And that may be the best of all.  Because as terrifying as change can be, at least it's something new.