Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The part where I ramble on about stuff.

Change, something that used to be a four letter word in my little book of life, has now become the very soil that my soul takes root in. I used to balk at anything unfamiliar, solidly planting my feet in the ground and resisting any type of movement, no matter how simple the notion. My mind was made up, and if it was different…if it was change, then by golly, it was the enemy. I faithfully adhered to this set of principles until recently, when I was jolted into the realization that for the first time in my short-ish life, I think I might know exactly who I am, and I wouldn’t be that person, were it not for enduring a scary little bit of change.

Now, I’m not naïve, I know not all change is good change. There are indeed some horrible types of change, but I was even resisting the good change, so scared of the unfamiliar that I allowed it to hinder my growth. I think it’s easy to slip into this mindset, at least it’s easy for me. Losing sight of the big picture, and holding on tight to what is instead daring to consider what could be.

But I am so grateful for change, for the ability to realize that maybe if you don’t like your current situation, or who you have become as a result of it…it doesn’t have to be permanent…you can change.

It was fear of change that had kept me in its steel grip of misery for years. Until one day when I realized, I just plain ole didn’t like who I was. I was bitter, full of self-pity, weak in mind and in spirit. Always ready to place blame and feel sorry for myself and the situation I was in, but never doing tiddly-winks about it. Gosh I thought, this is ugly…I’m ugly. My first instinct was to wallow even more, because after all, that was what I was good at…but then I realized if I was ever going to like myself again, I had to break that cycle. I had to change. It took little sprouts of other types of change, dotted throughout my life, to season me and strengthen me for a task that I never would have been able to endure a year ago. I dwelled upon those, mustering up any type of strength I could from them. Then I rolled up my sleeves…because if there is anything I know about change, it is that it’s seldom ever clean.

Today I feel as though a slow and sometimes painful transformation has taken place, and through change, that horrid ‘’was’’ that I hated so much, has been shaped into an ‘’am’’ that I feel pretty darned confident about, leading me to believe that suffering and humbling, cleansed by brief respites of joy, must truly be life’s most effective character shapers.

Through all of this change that has taken place for me the past year, through all of these life lessons that I won’t soon forget, I have been formed into a better version of myself. A happier version, a more confident version, a savvy girl…someone I like and someone I would want to be friends with.

Whenever I feel that old bitter hand of fear trying to grope at my spirit again…I shoo it away, give it the finger and I move on.

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