Life doesn’t turn out how you like. NBD! So like a normal person you quit your job of 10 years, break up with your boyfriend of 6 years, travel to Europe for 2 months, pack all your belongings and move south. To Texas. To Austin specifically from NYC. How much different can it really be? Oh girl….
I felt the early rumblings of change a year before I … wait… 6 months after my boyfriend of 3 years moved to NYC from Las Vegas, I knew something wasn’t quite right. We kept having the same conversation slash fight slash plead and just to spare you from the same lugubrious conversation I could probably recite from memory, sometimes a man moves in and all the ugly details come to surface. So let’s just fast forward 3 more years because truthfully, I stayed. Whatever issues there were, or weren’t, I stayed and tried and fought and in the end failed. Or dodged a bullet. Depends which day you’re asking. Bang bang. (pffffff) <– that’ me blowing off the gun powder, fyi.
Change doesn’t happen overnight. A friend’s aunt sent her a beautiful thought on change I’d like to share with you: Shifting comes in a myriad of shapes and sizes. Sometimes seismic where in a blink what was to be is tumbled and twirled, reshaped and reformed, lost and found- and within a moment things are new. More often though the experience is incremental- the self in a lowly 360 degree dance of perception- picking and choosing, resisting and accepting, adjusting and evolving- everything on display until one comes full circle and is redone. It seems this time you might be within the dance and the best advice is always to simply enjoy the view. There is always a multitude on display.
They say the only constant thing in life is change. Pushing back against change leaves you stale, stagnant, incapable of growth and expansion. Change is hard, don’t get me wrong. Walking away from people, places, comfort and the old ways of doing things is downright impossible for many people my ex included. His fear of the great unknown was bigger than the two of us combined. His fear was so great he was willing and capable of letting me walk out the door because leaving his comfort in the material world was harder than leaving his comfort in matters of the heart. For me, staying, losing myself and discovering what could have been was scarier than walking away and discovering something new. However I find little to no comfort in the material world and when I’m in a state of change, material things are the first things I clear out. I need to declutter and reorganize and make space for the things I want, for the things I desire rather they be love or purpose or companionship. In the last few months of my relationship with, his discomfort toward change drove him to purchase and fill the space that was missing in our connection. We were just driven by extremely different versions of change. I, however, think his drive was misguided.
I first started looking around my life and asking; what is the most important to me right now, what do I need in my life at this moment, who are the people I value that add inspiration to my life, how many pairs of heels do I really need, how many books, how many candles. I slowly started sifting through it all and filling bags and bags of my old life to be shipped off. The “stuff” was suffocating me in my panic to discover what the change moving through me was specifically. The “stuff” hid the transition. The “stuff” took my attention from my intention. It all had to go (all is ambitious, I’ll admit).
While this transition was happening in my life, it was also happening in my heart. I became happy for possibly the first real time in my life. Funny, isn’t it, how in the depths of change, confusion and transition happiness appears and informs all? And I changed. I am the reason the relationship did not continue. I became a better, different, newer person and that person desired more, craved a bigger love, a more fulfilled life. And I refuse to ever feel guilty about that! I would never say that I was settling for anything previously. Despite how my relationship turned out, I still think my ex is a great person who is capable of many amazing things and who will, probably much sooner than I, find that person who fits. However, his reluctance to change and my embrace of change clashed dynamically.
The hope I’ve found in love, or the one I imagine I will find in my next relationship, is to fall in love with someone you can positively change with in a constant evolution of humanity and heart. I imagine falling in love with someone who encourages that, inspires forward motion, motivates me beyond my wildest imagination. Once you find someone who makes you feel the impossible is possible, then change is welcomed and embraced without reason. Because anything, literally, anything is possible. All the good and all the bad, of course, but you never know the magic that is waiting for you until you jump. And by that I mean yes in love but also in life, in your heart, in your desire, in your efforts, in your intentions. Jump!
While I sit still in the throes of adjustment and reflect on how I’ve continued changing or morphing into the person I am today but will probably not be tomorrow, I have certainly learned that although this life isn’t perfect, it’s my life and it’s the only one I get. If I’m not taking care of myself, I’m doing an huge injustice to my heart and soul. I must keep pushing forward and being curious to all that is out there.
Love! Death! GLITTER!!! 