I am not a lover of big changes.
I lived in my last home for 20 years, even though I was drowning in repairs and needed to downsize.
I stayed at my last job for 20 years, even though I should have been making a lot more money with my experience.
I’ve hung on to a few relationships for WAY too long.
When I do decide that I’m going to make a big change, it takes me a very long time to make it happen. I prefer having a lot of ducks in a row. Maybe not all of my ducks, but a good amount of them.
Change is HARD for me.
Imagine my resistance when my child was hurtling toward high school graduation, college, and adulthood; I was discussing marriage with my now-husband; and I was preparing for the sale of my house and subsequent move. Throw in the death of my mom and a global pandemic and I was in rapid-change hell.
But …
I wanted most of those changes (not losing my mom or having a pandemic). I wanted to move my life forward in so many ways. I wanted to celebrate my daughter moving her life forward in all of the normal ways.
In those years, I had to breathe deeply a lot. I had to do the best I could and accept my limits. I had to focus on what was fun and celebratory. Even with the deep sadness of my mom’s death, my siblings and I threw a phenomenal funeral that was a true celebration of her life and allowed people to grieve, gather together, and toast her life. Even with the shitstorm of the pandemic, I was happy to spend so much time with my dogs and so little time in the car. Even with the hard, hard, hard work of decluttering, purging, and selling a home, I could embrace that each activity put me one step closer to a home with less maintenance and a much lower house payment.
Although learning to parent an adult child was new and hard at times, I could celebrate every moment that it was happening because we both had life-threatening health challenges we had survived. Every day I get to be here to be her mom, I am grateful. Every day of her existence is a gift I once thought would be taken away. So, learning to relate to her as an adult? WOO HOO! WE DID IT!
So, no, I didn’t embrace all of these changes, but I did allow myself to give most of them a solid side hug.