Time Flies and Nothing Stays The Same
No one told me that getting older meant compounding change and working meant new processes, re-organizations, and always new workmates.
Change on change on change. And maturing amid this change is never easy. We are always growing, molding, and healing with each blow.
I am lucky to have found changes that slowly grew in my life over the last few years. On the other hand, ten years’ worth of change are gifted to some overnight, and they are still healing from the burden, growing, and learning today. To those, I applaud.
This year began with change.
Today, the heartbeat of change is all around me.
Instead of a cold December 31st, the air was warm. Clear January skies are gone as gray paints the horizon. Once a place of trees and cool air, home is now a foreign feeling.
Things I was used to over the holidays evaporated right before me. Cold January nights were plagued with warmth and sweaty early mornings. December city strolls to witness the City’s lights were abandoned due to heavy traffic and the crowd. Parking was impossible.
Holidays no longer hit the same (check out my post about this here), yet I was still hopeful that some things would remain the same. I woke up on the 1st of January learning that the things I have held on to are slowly floating away.
As we grow older, more and more things fall out of our grasp. As children, only 1 or 2 classmates move schools through the years. In the workplace, a whole team can leave overnight. All this change is larger than us and out of our control. I may also be talking about things I am not fully aware of—things I do not want to think about, unpreventable things that will come to pass.
Maybe, all these small losses are merely building us up to face bigger changes, to cope with the harder losses. These little heartaches, breakups, and life-changing events are strengthening us for the things we refuse to think about, the things we push aside.
Even with that in mind, the small changes hurt.
Right now, my heart aches as I see how old my parents are getting, I see the white hairs on my dog’s snout, and my cat outgrowing his bed.
People drifted apart, some friendships never saw the light of day throughout 2023, and trees—older than me—were robbed of their lives and homes.
These small things are reminders of how change is the only constant, something we choose to forget.
Standing in the Past and Moving On
Just before 2023 ended, we visited a childhood home—abandoned and left stuck in the moment when we still lived there. The images of summer nights playing with our cousins and busy school days flooded my mind. High school pictures and memorabilia weighed on my heart, and the world, for a minute, stood still. Somehow, I time-traveled back to 2007.
We cleared old school uniforms, my school bag, old textbooks, and trinkets from worn-out closets and cabinets, all for throwing away, to be forgotten again.
This house will be sold.
There will be no more childhood to look back to, no shelves filled with mementos. 2007 will, again, be lost in my memory.
If I had a choice, I would have stayed in 2007, but I can’t.
Like the new year, I had to move on.
And like the house moving on to create new memories with a new family, I, too, have to move on and accept the changes in my family, friends, surroundings, and circles.
Almost exactly a year ago, I sat and watched change come into my life with joy and other emotions I was afraid to admit (check out my post here). To this day, I am dealing with and still adjusting to all the changes this milestone entailed.
I am not bitter in any way or form, but being left behind as others run away into a sunset beyond the issues and complexities of this life I have lived in the last 28 years fills me with another ache I refuse to acknowledge.
I cannot deny that I want to run away sometimes, too. But, I am a coward.
As change has taken hold of the first days of this new year, I am afraid change will be nearby throughout this year.
Luckily, you and I have this new year to learn to better cope with our ever-changing lives. Let us not continue to take change in the posture of defeat.
For tips to help better cope with change, check out this article by Deakin University.
As change continues to mold us, one day, we will all be strong enough to stand up to change, to create change that would prove a tsunami in the core of our comfort zones.
One day, change will no longer be avoided but embraced. And I look forward to that.
Busyzi 