People are always trying to tell me 'change is good'. But all that it means is something you didn't want to happen, has happened.

When you move back home and you are surrounded by places, things and people that you've known all your life...change seems like a much angrier beast. Change is something that has come in, while you were away, and closed your favorite restaurant, moved your ex-boyfriend to another city, gotten your friends engaged and convinced your best friend to buy a house. How dare it come in and change your whole life around while you were gone?! And how are you supposed to adjust to all of this? Isn't it bad enough that you have to learn how to use the new microwave that your parents bought and go to a new hair salon? Hasn't this beast put you through enough?

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy;

for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves;

we must die to one life before we can enter another." ~Anatole France

Today I search for wisdom because I have no wisdom of my own, I only have my observations. Change has never been easy for me. Big changes, little changes, superficial changes...I saw them all as a threat to my way of life. A new sofa or chair, different pillows on my bed, a new microwave or refrigerator...all of these things are small and seemingly insignificant when they happen one at a time. However, when everything changes so quickly it becomes overwhelming.

"Things do no change. We change." ~Henry David Thoreau

However, I know that it isn't the new furniture or appliances that really bother me, they are just manifestations. What I am really having trouble with are the changes in my family unit, the health of a loved one...rapidly detiorating, moving out and moving on.

"For everything you have missed,

you have gained something else,

and for everything you gain,

you lose something else."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Part of me is extremely excited to start another journey, another adventure. I know that this road, like all roads worth taking, will have challenges and frustrations. I also know that I could not have stayed where I was, doing what I was doing...and I cannot stay where I am now, doing nothing. Therefore my choices are limited. I must accept and embrace change and move on or dwell on how things used to be. The choice seems clear however, at the moment, it is blurred by strong memories and old emotions.

"Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes."

~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe