Change...

I think the older we get, the more resistant to change we become.  It seems the more things try to change, the more that we try to stay the same.  The more I get to know people, the more I realize that we are all pretty much this way.  Staying exactly the same for as long as possible… standing perfectly still… somehow it just feels better that way.  It doesn’t seem to matter if you are happy or suffering, just as long as its familiar, because if you took that leap of faith… went outside the box… did something unexpected – who knows what other pain might be waiting out there.  Chances are it could be even worse.

So we maintain the status quo.  We take the paths that have already been traveled and it doesn’t seem that bad… not as far as flaws go.  You’re not killing anyone, except maybe yourself a little.

When and if we finally do change… I don’t think it happens like an earthquake or an explosion – where all of a sudden we are this different person.  It’s smaller than that.  The kind of thing that most people wouldn’t even notice… unless they looked at us really – really close.  Thank God they never do.  But you notice it – inside you that change feels like a world of difference.  And you hope this is it.  This is the person that you get to be forever… that you will never have to change again.

That’s kind of the way I felt this Thanksgiving at least.  Everything was so different … the place we had Thanksgiving … the people that were there.  It just makes it not seem worth it anymore.  It’s sad to say, but true none the less.  And you can tell that everyone is thinking the exact same thing as you – but no one is daring brave enough to say such horrific things.  

I used to think that I liked change – but change for me meant reorganizing my furniture – not my life and the people who surround it.  Not changing my career path even though I sometimes wonder if this is what I really want to do.  Not trying to decide if I should pick up and move to New York for a job that’s the opportunity of a lifetime.  Or even trying to decide if I can tell my own mother who I am or not.  

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.  ~Anatole France