I am doing it again- linking up with More than Cheese and Beer, and today- today she has us confessing.... Change.
Change is the way the world works! How we grow and move and live. Without change, most of us would not be the people we are today and most of the time, well, change is good.
Change can also be scary, nerve-wracking, painful. There are so many words to describe Change and given that Change in itself is a transformation; why shouldn't it be something that has so many describing words.
By the standards of most people, I am young yet. In my brief, 30 years I have experienced more change then I am comfortable to discuss. I have learned how to be the child of a single mother, I have lived through the change in her as she went from strong independent woman, to a woman in love, then to a woman lost to the change only losing the love of your life to death can bring. I watched her falter and sink, was it no wonder the rest of us did too? I watched as a little girl, as my brothers went from normal teenagers, who we looked up to and loved and changed into monsters, that would linger in the shadows of our fear for more then 18 years. I learned several of the worst forms of change once when I was little and I watched my granny transform from a loving, caring person, into someone else before our very eyes as first dementia, then later full blown Alzheimer's took over. Then as a teenager, when my step-brother; changed from a carefree, hippie, art loving youth, to a lost and wandering creature because of Schizophrenia.
These were serious changes, changes that affected my ability to make decisions, that made me who I was. I fought the changes inside myself. I swore to myself; I would not touch alcohol or drugs, I would not become a monster, I would never, ever love someone that much that I would forget about the world around me! Oh, no, I would learn from the changes in others and protect myself.
Then change hit closer to home when I was 18 and we had to quickly sell my childhood home, the home I had lived in for 18 years, that my mother was born in and at least three of my Aunts. We had to sell and move. And on top of it all, I was bringing my boyfriend with me, so while change was happening, it wasn't a super change for me, except leaving behind the only home I had ever known. Sometimes change can be an adventure, and the first two years it was! It was an amazing adventure. One, where I changed from a young, unsure girl into a mother and wife. Where we moved, the seasons changed differently, the air was cleaner, purer. Life in general could be better.
But Change has a way of sneaking up on you and in a few short years, I would be hit with a big one... Separation and Divorce! Holy cow, what a change!! To go from being a stay at home mom and housewife, with two little ones, to trying to figure out how to do it all on my own. That is not an easy sort of change. I was terrified! I had no clue, I was afraid to reach out for help, but I had too. Change, doesn't care if you are ready, you have to make yourself ready, and perhaps that is the best part of Change. It gives you an option and it also makes you see clearly what was so very wrong with your life before the change happened. It took me a very long time to see it as a blessing instead of a burden, a scary, never knowing what might happen next burden! And I did. I grasped the change before the year was over and rode it to the end. I changed too. I changed for the better, I found myself during that period of change, I really grew up finally. I realized I had to tools to support my children, myself, to heal me. I didn't need anyone else to take care of any of that. I was perfectly capable.
Change is sneaky though; when you think you have everything together, it through detours in your path and the Monsters that had been created years and years before, liked to jump out of the shadow and muddy the waters. I truly believe that choices can sometimes be taken away from a person and the people they become have two options, and change is one of them. Of course they have to want change, before that they will continue being selfish and bringing chaos in their reach. It was a scary time all over again and I here I was, alone to carry the burden, pay bills, take care of children and hope and pray that the people I was afraid of could do what needed to be done so I could. At this point in that year of utter chaotic change, I had to make a lot of decisions. I should have been healing, not hurting, but when you have people in your life battling demons you can not see, who are selfish to their own problems, your hurts dim by comparison. So Change took hold, gave me my mother and I sent my boys to her, while I tried to figure out the next step in my change.
My Changing journey brought me back to New Jersey, just as the clock hit midnight on New Years Eve, of my year of change. There was more hope for the coming year because I had to make more changes, I had to learn from past mistakes and just be. Thank goodness I took that leap of CHANGE.
Of course, I didn't realize then that Change wasn't through with me yet; eventually it would be for the better- there would be love, loss, hurt, pain, fear. There would be an immense amount of sadness. I would hear horrible things as the monsters were conquered. I would watch as two people were tossed about on a rocky sea, only to come out of it at the end as I knew they would and change for the better, like I knew they had in them. I would watch the change from selfish monster, to selfish baby and back again, over and over, with another one, and watch as my heart would break for the good I knew was inside, but the diseases and abuse the outside had taken, was keeping it hidden inside. I would fear for a change in my relationship, with the first pure love I had ever experienced, for a good four years, not just because I had been hurt once before, but because I had to continue battling with and to defend and protect, the monsters. I watched chaos change to smooth sailing.
The last twelve years have been the craziest years of my life. I have watched my children change from babies to toddlers to little kids just getting life, to seeing the early stages of the tween years- I have watched myself change from a free-spirited teenager, to an oppressed housewife, back to the free-spirited and then into this elegant, self loving butterfly I am now! I have watched my brothers and sisters change, my mother. The world around me is changing all the time.
Sometimes it is painful, sometimes it is amazing!
However, to me, it will always be necessary!
Change is the way the world works! How we grow and move and live. Without change, most of us would not be the people we are today and most of the time, well, change is good.
Change can also be scary, nerve-wracking, painful. There are so many words to describe Change and given that Change in itself is a transformation; why shouldn't it be something that has so many describing words.
By the standards of most people, I am young yet. In my brief, 30 years I have experienced more change then I am comfortable to discuss. I have learned how to be the child of a single mother, I have lived through the change in her as she went from strong independent woman, to a woman in love, then to a woman lost to the change only losing the love of your life to death can bring. I watched her falter and sink, was it no wonder the rest of us did too? I watched as a little girl, as my brothers went from normal teenagers, who we looked up to and loved and changed into monsters, that would linger in the shadows of our fear for more then 18 years. I learned several of the worst forms of change once when I was little and I watched my granny transform from a loving, caring person, into someone else before our very eyes as first dementia, then later full blown Alzheimer's took over. Then as a teenager, when my step-brother; changed from a carefree, hippie, art loving youth, to a lost and wandering creature because of Schizophrenia.
These were serious changes, changes that affected my ability to make decisions, that made me who I was. I fought the changes inside myself. I swore to myself; I would not touch alcohol or drugs, I would not become a monster, I would never, ever love someone that much that I would forget about the world around me! Oh, no, I would learn from the changes in others and protect myself.
Then change hit closer to home when I was 18 and we had to quickly sell my childhood home, the home I had lived in for 18 years, that my mother was born in and at least three of my Aunts. We had to sell and move. And on top of it all, I was bringing my boyfriend with me, so while change was happening, it wasn't a super change for me, except leaving behind the only home I had ever known. Sometimes change can be an adventure, and the first two years it was! It was an amazing adventure. One, where I changed from a young, unsure girl into a mother and wife. Where we moved, the seasons changed differently, the air was cleaner, purer. Life in general could be better.
But Change has a way of sneaking up on you and in a few short years, I would be hit with a big one... Separation and Divorce! Holy cow, what a change!! To go from being a stay at home mom and housewife, with two little ones, to trying to figure out how to do it all on my own. That is not an easy sort of change. I was terrified! I had no clue, I was afraid to reach out for help, but I had too. Change, doesn't care if you are ready, you have to make yourself ready, and perhaps that is the best part of Change. It gives you an option and it also makes you see clearly what was so very wrong with your life before the change happened. It took me a very long time to see it as a blessing instead of a burden, a scary, never knowing what might happen next burden! And I did. I grasped the change before the year was over and rode it to the end. I changed too. I changed for the better, I found myself during that period of change, I really grew up finally. I realized I had to tools to support my children, myself, to heal me. I didn't need anyone else to take care of any of that. I was perfectly capable.
Change is sneaky though; when you think you have everything together, it through detours in your path and the Monsters that had been created years and years before, liked to jump out of the shadow and muddy the waters. I truly believe that choices can sometimes be taken away from a person and the people they become have two options, and change is one of them. Of course they have to want change, before that they will continue being selfish and bringing chaos in their reach. It was a scary time all over again and I here I was, alone to carry the burden, pay bills, take care of children and hope and pray that the people I was afraid of could do what needed to be done so I could. At this point in that year of utter chaotic change, I had to make a lot of decisions. I should have been healing, not hurting, but when you have people in your life battling demons you can not see, who are selfish to their own problems, your hurts dim by comparison. So Change took hold, gave me my mother and I sent my boys to her, while I tried to figure out the next step in my change.
My Changing journey brought me back to New Jersey, just as the clock hit midnight on New Years Eve, of my year of change. There was more hope for the coming year because I had to make more changes, I had to learn from past mistakes and just be. Thank goodness I took that leap of CHANGE.
Of course, I didn't realize then that Change wasn't through with me yet; eventually it would be for the better- there would be love, loss, hurt, pain, fear. There would be an immense amount of sadness. I would hear horrible things as the monsters were conquered. I would watch as two people were tossed about on a rocky sea, only to come out of it at the end as I knew they would and change for the better, like I knew they had in them. I would watch the change from selfish monster, to selfish baby and back again, over and over, with another one, and watch as my heart would break for the good I knew was inside, but the diseases and abuse the outside had taken, was keeping it hidden inside. I would fear for a change in my relationship, with the first pure love I had ever experienced, for a good four years, not just because I had been hurt once before, but because I had to continue battling with and to defend and protect, the monsters. I watched chaos change to smooth sailing.
The last twelve years have been the craziest years of my life. I have watched my children change from babies to toddlers to little kids just getting life, to seeing the early stages of the tween years- I have watched myself change from a free-spirited teenager, to an oppressed housewife, back to the free-spirited and then into this elegant, self loving butterfly I am now! I have watched my brothers and sisters change, my mother. The world around me is changing all the time.
Sometimes it is painful, sometimes it is amazing!
However, to me, it will always be necessary!