Change - you can't avoid it

Friday, August 14, 2009 by Matt

Change. Some perceive it as an adjustment in our physical world - something that was once over there and is now over here. You can see it, and compare the difference of what it once was, and what it is now. Example: you move your couch from one side of the room to the other. You gain a whole new perspective on the living room.

Some changes aren't as visible, though. Some changes only affect you inside, deep within your being that rocks to the core of who you are. These changes feel transcending, ethereal, and final. What was once inside of you is no longer the same; it's reshaped and reformed itself into something far different, completely unexpected, and not yet defined.

Getting married and moving out is an example of a change where not many physical adjustments were made, but internally life has sprung a new chapter, ready or not.

Michelle and I are not doing things much differently than before, when we lived under our parents roofs. We go to work in our cars or trains; we come home in the evenings for dinner and then go to bed. We see the same friends, do the same activities, and have the same expectations/ideas for the future.

What's changed may not be visibly evident to an alien looking down upon our lives. What's changed is something inside of us; something out of reach of the human eye, and can't be measured by anything in this world. We can't see, feel, or taste it - but we know it's there.

You can't prepare for such changes. You may think you have everything in order, or that you're somehow so "long overdue" for the change, that the mere effect will be lessened.

It won't be lessened. You can't avoid it, or somehow become immune to it. It will hit you whether you're prepared or not. And when it does, you'll realize that something profound happened, and that you can never go back to the way things were.

This feeling is both frightening and enlivening. I am excited for the future, but it feels like a big part of me has simply disappeared. I am now a stranger in a new land, where my sense of "home" no longer exists.

What to make of all this? I'll let you know in time.

Comments

# Carissa at 8/27/2009 7:18 pm cst

Isn't it starting to feel like home more yet? I know it took me a while, but it definitely feels like home now!

# Matt at 8/28/2009 7:59 am cst

Little by little! We're getting there. :-)