transition: on not being flexible

You might know her as Eggs Benedict, or from her blog at A Long Far View, but I’m well acquainted with Maggie from all the sunshine (and she lives in Seattle!) and fun she brings via Twitter. Seriously. She [now] lives with an ocean view and always has a perspective on life that I admire or share, and is more often than not helping everyone through a rough spot in the week. Even though we have to agree to disagree on our favorite PAC-12 teams, she’s pretty darn cool to the core!

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I feel like people tend self-identify as either “well-adjusted types who go with the flow no matter what” or “type A control freak who must be in control of everything all the time.” Though perhaps not in so many words. Or at least not those exact words. Me? I always thought I was a well adjusted type who was fairly easy going. Until it was pointed out to me that in fact, at least when it comes to serious life decisions and life changes, I actually am not. At all.

See, whenever anyone mentions the word transition to me lately, all I can think of now is a phrase that my mother is very fond of: “I’m flexible so long as you don’t change anything.” And it pisses me off now because, my god, I’m turning into my mother! (Though this seems much less drastic now that I have gotten older and discovered that I am quite in awe of my mother and all she does, and love spending time with her now. My teenage self would be amazed.) I used to have no problem with change (well, that’s a lie, but I at least had less of a problem with change), but now I get all weird and emotional and “how can anything be right in the world because it’s all changing and we’re all going to die” mode. Which drives my husband nuts. Clearly I am the stable and balanced one in our house.

Ok, not really. But I think my ability to deal well with transitions has suffered greatly in the past year simply because of how many things in my life have changed. My then fiance and I moved states. We lived with my brother for awhile. We planned a wedding. We got married. I started a new job. He graduated with another degree. He took another bar exam. We moved again. I started dealing with very unpleasant health issues. I turned 30. Very dear friends have moved far, far away. We talked (and continue to talk) about having babies (but that’s still in the someday future mode because I’m honestly not sure how I’ll deal with that change. Should I just thank anyone who’s out there listening that there’s 9 months to get used to the idea of it actually becoming true??). See? I would like for things to stop changing now!

Luckily, things seem to be slowing down finally! (or at least until my baby fever spikes again and I just can’t contain it, which I know will flip my entire life on end, at least at the beginning. I’ll admit, every time I see a picture of Miss L I’m so ready to toss aside all good sense and reason and proclaim to my husband that we have to have babies NOW! Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t want me reading so many blogs anymore…).

But in all seriousness, as we settle into our new place (which I have to say, feels more like home than our last several places ever did), I feel like I’m ready to focus on the now and to enjoy the place where we’re at. Maybe even worry a little bit less about how everything is just going to change on me again someday. I know it will, so maybe if I can focus on where I’m at now I can tackle future changes a bit more gracefully?

Or perhaps I should just accept that I don’t deal well with change and keep my house stocked with chocolate for emergency freak outs.