Change is Hard

Just as I crested the top of the stairs on Thursday, I saw the tram pulling away from our stop.  The next tram wasn't due for 17 minutes.

In the grand scheme of Important Things, this was not one of them.  There would be another tram coming. The weather was beautiful so it wouldn't be unpleasant to wait. It wasn't like I were going anywhere emergent or like I were on a tight schedule. There wasn't any reason for this to cause me to cry.

And yet, it did.  I stood at the railing of the platform, looking out toward the distant mountains and struggling to keep the tears from escaping my eyes and rolling down my cheeks.

After finishing my errands and on the way home, I started thinking about my reaction. It seemed an exaggerated response to such a minor irritation, and I don't like it when things don't make sense.

It struck me that my life here feels out of synch. Like the tram pulling away just moments before my arrival, I am just slightly out of step with my environment. It's like trying to dance the waltz to a song with a 7/8 time signature.  Or trying to listen to the radio station that's just slightly out of tune.

I feel like we live in a hotel room.  With the exception of two bookcases and a rocking chair, none of the furniture is ours, none of it is something we specifically chose. I'm fearful of putting any art on the walls, afraid that even a removable fastening might damage the paint. Moving into a furnished place has been both a blessing and a curse - nice that we didn't have to bring much with us and pay more shipping costs, unfortunate in that we got what we got.  I'm a creature that's sensitive to my environment and it just feels so sterile, so uncomfortable, not cozy at all.

I don't feel like I fit in anywhere. I feel like a tourist, an "other," someone who doesn't really belong here. I don't have any kind of community and, even for an introvert, that can feel very lonely and scary.

Nothing feels familiar, even the places I've visited multiple times.  Back in Minnesota, my cubicle at work felt familiar. The library felt familiar. The grocery store felt familiar. The streets I drove on every day felt familiar. Seeing our resident squirrels and bunnies and deer felt familiar.

I guess I thought I'd have an easier time acclimating, which is ridiculous considering that I've met me before. Would it have been easier if we'd moved to another US state rather than a completely new country?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I think I've mentioned before that I didn't seem to have this much trouble when I moved from Minnesota to Texas but the circumstances were different and I was different.  That was 30 years ago.

My inner critic chides me for complaining and kvetching.  You ASKED for this gift, she says. You told the Universe this is what you wanted, and look at you - not even being able to appreciate this opportunity because you're too focused on what's lacking.  What are you doing to fix the situation?

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I haven't done a very good job of integrating here either.  I haven't thrown myself head-first into finding ways to assimilate - attending cultural events, trying to get together with like-minded people, doing what I CAN do to make our apartment more homey.  So, much of the responsibility for my current predicament is resting at my own feet.

I've been getting lots of signs lately to "let go."  You can't grasp or accept the here-and-now if you're still holding onto the past. You're wasting energy dragging what-was into what-is. Back in 2005, I had a tarot reading, and the only thing I remember the guy saying was that I spend a lot of energy wishing things were different instead accepting the way things actually were.

When you have separation anxiety, letting go is difficult.  The release of something, the absence or distance, is the reason for the anxiety, after all.  But is holding onto my previous life keeping me from flourishing in my present one?

Joseph Campbell has a great quote where he said "We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

In a couple of weeks, we'll have been here for nine months.  It's interesting to me that I've been seeing a lot of "rebirth" signs along my path recently, just as my emotions are coming to a head.  Perhaps all of this time leading up to next month has been a gestation period for me, and I'm getting ready to burst into a new life.  Richard Bach wrote "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly."

Change is hard.  Growth is hard.  Being born is hard.  But the alternative - stagnation, paralysis, death - doesn't sound all that appealing to me.

So.  It's onward and upward.  I've got a lot of work to do.

(The following is a vision board I created many, many years ago.  I actually think I brought it along when we moved here.  For someone so resistant to change, it's funny how this board was all about change.  And there's that butterfly again.)