Is change easy for you?
My answer:
For me, not at all. I actually often say that I’m quite change-phobic. Even when I know that it’s going to be a good change, the process itself is almost always really stressful for me. Even changes that I myself provoke because I think they’re necessary for me. They always involve lots of thinking it through, as I am usually very serious and careful when it comes to decisions that might be life-altering in any way. Once I do think it through and conclude that it’s indeed worth it, there’ll still be hours of rumination before and after the actual change takes place, and my brain will be a mess during the getting-used-to phase. I’ve always been like that and hated and dreaded even the smallest changes as long in advance as I knew about a change being a possibility. So I guess you could say I’m conservative in the most literal way possible. 😀
I’ve already written on here a lot about technology-related transitions and changes, of which I’ve had a lot in recent years, about moving houses, renovations and things like that, and I guess about new school year changes that I dreaded all summer as a kid as well. So I thought that, answering this question, I’d focus on one particular type of change that I have a very weird relationship with, namely the very natural changes that happen simply due to passing time, like people changing over time, getting older etc. I’ve only recently had to do some soul-searching and fully realised the extent of it, but it’s always been more or less of a problem for me. I guess a lot of people might dislike these changes or feel a little melancholic/sentimental about them like my Mum is, but for me, it’s not so much about sentimentalism, but more like a mix of anxiety, lack of control, a bit of confusion and probably some other things that I’m not really sure what they are. Basically it kind of upsets me internally when I think of how people, things and situations around me change over time. For example, my Mum turned fifty this year, and she’s been saying a lot how she totally doesn’t feel her age, that it feels surreal to her. Which makes all the sense, because she’s very physically fit and healthy, and some people literally think she’s in her thirties, she’s also generally more mentally flexible I’d say than an average fifty-year-old. I too find this quite absurd to think that my Mum is fifty years old. But recently something made me think of the fact that, actually, a lot of her behaviours – things in the way she talks, thinks, various personality traits that have either strengthened or weakened in her, do feel very much middle-aged and she’s not really quite like she used to be, say, ten years ago. – Sounds obvious, but things like that really feel quite disconcerting to think about.
Recently, Olek met a girl, and he seems to be head over heels in love with her. He once had a girlfriend as a teenager, they dated for many years and everyone thought they’d just marry once they become adults and that’ll be it, but they broke up eventually and, until now, he hadn’t dated anyone, at least to my knowledge. Our extended family kept asking him and Mum if he’s finally got someone, but he didn’t even seem interested in seeking love, and given that he’s quite introverted, at some point we’d just assume that he’d just be alone, and figured maybe it’s for the best, as it’s so hard bringing up children these days. He even once said something about considering to be some kind of religious hermit or something (well not exactly a hermit as he heard of some sort of community, not exactly a religious order but more like a lay community in which men live in reclusion and purity and pray and stuff and something about that appealed to him) the mere thought of which had me in stitches, but anyway, no one was really expecting him to find a girl anymore. I’m obviously super happy for his sake, but it also feels scary. I wonder how come it doesn’t feel scary for all the other people, to once witness someone as a toddler guzzling semolina from a bottle and then about to get married. Or maybe I’m just immature or something. Sofi is thrilled, not just for his sake but also just because she thinks it’s really cool, Mum is a little apprehensive but mostly just because she doesn’t know that girl well and she’s a fair bit older from Olek, and it’s obvious that a caring parent would be apprehensive about someone that their child wants to spend the rest of their life with. Bibiel meanwhile is just kind of scared and confused, and it all feels super awkward.
Sofi has been going through changes nearly daily. This year has generally been hard for us because of Sofi, which I’m not going to go into detail about here, but it has at least in some part to do with how she’s changing, the word “changing” having a very broad meaning in this context. Apparently it makes people feel happy and all fuzzy on the inside to see children grow, but for me, it’s quite depressing. With Sofi way more than any other child I’ve known, because I hadn’t been as close with any other child since such an early age. It’s not like I would want Sofi to stop developing or anything just because I don’t like the fact that she’s changing, but I really miss the little Sofi, and don’t feel quite as comfortable with this new, very different Sofi.
And then there’s Misha. Thankfully he doesn’t change much especially in terms of character, or if he does it’s so slow that you can hardly notice it. Although I’ve recently noticed that his paws have started creaking and popping a bit which never happened before. But I think it’s really scary and unfair that cats have to age so quickly. Any changes concerning Misha feel probably the worst for me, because I’m basically addicted to Misha so I’m really scared of him dying, but also because I know that Misha is also very change-phobic. The slightest change in his routine, or in the way the furniture is arranged in the house, can really upset him, so knowing that about him, any changes concerning him affect me twice as much as any other changes.
Actually just earlier today my cousin visited us, she’s a year younger than me and we generally have a pretty good relationship. She’s a nun, so she comes home like once a year or so. Personality-wise, she hasn’t changed at all, even though at the same time she’s insanely nun-like, even in the way she laughs and little things like that, and I know what I’m saying since I know lots of nuns from the blind school. 😀 But she was telling us how she works in a children’s home and really enjoys working with the children even though they’re very challenging, and was showing us pics of them etc. Which made me think about how her life has changed so much in recent years and how overwhelming that would have been for me.
This doesn’t however apply only to people/beings I care about though. I remember when I was a child going to primary school, I once got really depressed when witnessing a few older girls’ graduation. I didn’t even know them all that well, they seemed to like me a bit and I used to hang out with them a bit at the very beginning of my school career but later on we didn’t have as much contact. Yet, seeing them graduate made me inevitably think of how so much time has passed since we were little, and that in a few years’ time it’s going to be my turn to graduate, which filled me with some unspecific dread. Besides, while I wasn’t very attached to them or anything and didn’t mingle with them anymore, for some reason I thought it depressing that they’ll no longer be here. I often feel like that when someone is leaving, even if I don’t even like them very much at all. It’s weird. Sometimes when I see someone after a long time and notice how much their voice has aged, it feels depressing too. It’s like I feel a sort of vague sense of pity towards that person because of how much they’ve aged, even if the change is only slight and they don’t sound bad at all or maybe even better, just a little bit different. I guess it’s fortunate that I can’t see what people look like, as people’s looks tend to change more dramatically over time than their characters or voices.
I sometimes think that maybe it’s because I/my life doesn’t change as much or as rapidly as most other people’s, and is not really typical in a lot of ways. So perhaps the reason it feels odd that, for example, Olek and Sofi are both dating is simply because I’m older than them and don’t have that experience, so even though I don’t necessarily miss having that experience, it does feel a little unnatural perhaps. Same about the aforementioned cousin, she’s younger than me, yet I totally couldn’t do what she does, working in a children’s home, so it makes my brain feel a bit confused that she does it. I have changed a lot internally in recent years, but that’s not as striking, and especially not for myself since I spend all the time with me so I don’t really get to notice the changes other than through my diary for example. But when it comes to myself, I’m even more scared of those natural changes. I’m not particularly afraid of death or even dying, but the idea of aging and living very long really scares me. And I’ve already told you many times about how I never wanted to be an adult when I was a kid, and had that odd dream-vision thing in preschool, in which I saw myself as an adult in a kitchen full of children and cooking food and having no idea wtf to do.
So, how about you? How do you feel about changes? Are any changes more difficult, or easier, for you than others? 🙂
My Inner MishMash 