Lessons from the Porch: Change

I don’t like it. It makes me sweat and incredibly nervous.

It takes every profound feeling I have and magnifies it to an unimaginable level. Ok, maybe that’s a tad bit of an exaggeration, but not much. I will obsess over it and analyze it until it’s broken down into so many pieces that it’s just about impossible to see clearly. I am my own worst enemy, but yet I do it every time.

Change.

Change is something you can count on. It’s life. It’s as normal as brushing your teeth. The average life goes through a multitude of change. I, however, hate it. I don’t like things being messed with. I don’t like what I know today to be different tomorrow. I don’t like counting on the consistency of something only to find out it’s now being altered into something different.

I’m not talking about the simple things in life. You can change tonight’s dinner menu on me and I’ll not care. We can switch vacation details at the last minute and I’ll go with the flow. You can even cancel plans with me and even though I’d be ticked, I’d handle it like a big girl.

I manage day to day complications with ease, understanding and hopefully a dash of humor. But once that dependable ground beneath me begins to shake, I yield and start asking questions. Not only of you, but of myself.

Some change is good and some change is bad. I get it.

In 2000 my father announced that he was leaving my mother after 30 plus years of marriage. You would have to know my family to realize what kind of shock this was. My parents represented the type of marriage that I yearned for. Because of their example, I decided early how I wanted to be treated. Their marriage made of stone was my template for how life should be. I felt it was as dependable as tomorrow’s sunrise.

This change shook the ground underneath me and I dug in my claws hoping to find some sort of sense of it all. I couldn’t. Although I still can’t, the passing seven years has caused me to live with a change that will forever be a defining moment in my life. The moment when I discovered love does not conquer all. That love may be as dependable as expecting sunny skies on your wedding day.

I have just experienced another life defining moment. Another change.

Being a single adult is great. My time is free and my money is mine. But as delicate and complex as love is, I have been searching for it since I officiated the wedding between Barbie and Ken.

I have been living my life in temporary housing for my entire adult life. Renting. Never burying my roots into a permanent home that I could call mine. This wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision. It was just self-assumed that I would permanently hang my hat in a home shared with someone else. Funny how life doesn’t listen to your plans.

Buying a house is stressful. Everyone knows this. And I feel being single makes it even worse. I have had to rely on the advice and help of friends who have gone above and beyond the call of friendship duty. But as I have begun settling into my new life in my new home perched upon this small hill, I have realized that this is the change I have needed for long time.

Through this change I have learned that the solidness of the ground beneath me isn’t dependent on someone else’s life or their decisions or their outlook. It’s only my own balance that can keep the ground steady. My parent’s marriage was just that – their marriage. Although it still saddens me to see how bad choices ruined a good marriage, I am slowly learning how to accept change as a way to customize my own life.

Right now I am sitting on my new front porch.

A front porch that belongs to me and not some landlord who is making an extra buck. All of the leaves on the big tree shading my house are mine. I paid for them. The other night I trimmed down the overgrown bushes planted alongside my driveway. Even though I hate every minute of yard work, I now know that maintaining those ugly bushes is an aid into helping me develop my own personal solid ground. It has been one out of many lessons I’ve experienced lately that has taught me that depending on myself is not a bad thing. It brings a sense of security that I normally looked toward others to provide. Although this change has been challenging these past few weeks, I am glad to have gone through the experience.

Of course my attitude can all change once I begin making the mortgage payments. And I reserve that right.