Change can be a scary thing for some people.  It’s all in the perspective, of course.  We are surrounded by change on a constant basis.  The weather changes daily, though anyone living in the Southwest will say it changes hourly.  Not scary.  Traffic construction seemingly pops up in a new place overnight.  Aggravating but not scary.  Technology changes so fast that we can barely keep up.  Buildings get knocked down and put up all in the name of change.  But even being surrounded by change on a regular basis, doesn’t make it less scary when it becomes personal.  To be honest, I can’t say that I ever remember feeling that change was in some way frightening.  I know there were times when I didn’t want it to happen or when I wanted to ignore it and pretend it wasn’t happening.  But scared?  Not exactly.  But there are some changes – four in particular – that have had a major impact on shaping the person I am today.

When I was around 14 years old, my parents divorced.  Children from divorce get affected in different ways.  It’s never a clear cut case of good or bad.  Circumstances and how the parents handle the situation play a major part in the affect it has on a child.  I was lucky.  My parents didn’t have a messy divorce.  Our family finances were always shaky.  But after the divorce, there was some stability.  My mom went from housewife to primary breadwinner for herself and three kids.  None of that scared me.  I knew we had the safety net of my grandparents in the background.  And once mom started teaching full-time, then it became even more stable.  A kind of stability we hadn’t had for a very long time.  The years leading up to the divorce and the immediate years after had a huge impact on who I am today.  I learned to be very independent both in my actions and thoughts (some would say excessively so).  My siblings and I formed a bond that we might not have had in a traditional family setup.  Regardless of where we go or what we do, there is no doubt that if I ever need anything all I have to do is reach out and vice versa.  And I can honestly say that I like spending time with them more than with anyone else.  (And I have some great friends!)  Not everyone can say that.  Were there negatives to the divorce?  Of course.  You can’t have a positive without a negative. However, in this instance the positive outweighed the negatives.  Big change.  Not scary.  Big impact.

The next major change in my life occurred in 2011 when a very close family friend passed away.  This falls into the category of not wanting it to happen but unable to stop it.  Huge impact on my life.  Very rarely does a day go by when I don’t think of her and still wish I could have stopped it in some way.  But life has a way of continuing.  I’m not going to go into detail here, maybe in some future post.  I’m still not ready.  I can however admit that it changed me.  For one thing, I’m much quicker to cry.  Heck I never used to cry about anything.  Today the right cat meme can make me cry buckets.  I no longer let the small stuff aggravate me.  It just doesn’t matter.  And I’m much more accepting of people which has made me more approachable.  This can be irritating when strangers randomly tell you their life story, but I think it makes me a better person.  No.  I know it’s made me a better person.  There are so many words I could use to describe this change in my life, but none of them involve being scared.  In life she always made me a better person, but her death made made me a better human being.

And of course, you can’t talk about personal change without mentioning a heart break or two or three or twenty depending on your social life.  In my case, there’s been one.  The hard part was that it came out of nowhere and so I felt blindsided.  This is the kind of change that you don’t have time to be scared about.  It just happens.  In my case, I was even more surprised to discover that I actually had a heart buried in there that was able to be broken at all.  Like a death, it’s something that I still deal with.  Having your heart crushed shakes your faith in your own choices and your trust in others.  At least it did for me.  I lost confidence in myself.  And while I’m still dealing with some of the fallout, it was my sense of independence that pulled me through the worst of it.  Not a change I would have chosen and certainly had I seen it coming, I would have prepared for it in some way.  Do I fear it happening again?  No, not in any way that matters.

The most recent change to have affected me personally was the loss of employment with a company I had spent more than 20 years of my life.  At one point, I had spent half my life there.  I grew up there.  I learned how to be a professional.  For most people, the loss of a job is scary because of the financial loss of income.  I wasn’t scared of not being able to replace the paycheck.  Funny enough, that wasn’t a concern at all.  No, it was the loss of my identity that hurt the most.  Without the job, I didn’t know who I was any more.  Change beyond my control.   The worst kind of change for someone like me.  It’s been almost 3 years and I still struggle.  Not that I miss the company.  I don’t.  And while I landed on my feet, I still feel that loss of identity.  That is because I won’t define myself by my job.  Not again.  I won’t go back to putting all my energy, effort and time into someone else’s company.  The struggle is in not reverting to same type of employee that I was and finding my new path.  This blog is a part of that new path.  Opening my own business is (fingers crossed) the next step on that path.  And there will be more steps to come.  Change not wanted but definitely needed.

Change.  It’s all around us.  The world keeps changing.  Our country keeps changing.  My home town and the people around me keep changing.  Most importantly, I keep changing.  And that doesn’t scare me.  And it shouldn’t.  No one should fear change regardless of how big or small.  We can fight to impact the effects of change, but we can’t stop change from happening.  How can you stop change?  It’s never ending.