Could you spare some change?

Change. For some, this word brings with it feelings of excitement. For others, this six-letter word seems more like a four-letter word. For all, however, change is inevitable.

I've had my ups and downs with change. Let's call it a love-hate relationship, although it started out pretty-much all hate...

According to my parents, when I was 3 and we moved into a new house, I spit on all the kitchen cabinets and tried to break them. I don't know why I chose to pick on the cabinets, but apparently, those cabinets represented everything bad and scary about this big change taking place in my 3-year-old life. I wonder why that at age 3, I knew to be wary of change. It was a very nice house and I even had my own room with Ballerina Teddy Bear wall paper. But I was pissed. And those poor cabinets never even saw me coming.

I survived the big move but inevitably, had other run-ins with change. For instance, every year after summer, I had to have a whole new class in school, with a whole new teacher. We moved into a new house again (I spared the cabinets this time). Then, even my own body turned on me and started changing. It seemed that the more I wanted things to stay the same, the more things changed.

After some really big changes (high school, dating, breakups, college, etc.), and some less-than-glamorous reactions to those changes--let's just say it was worse than spitting-- I ended up in a therapists office on a big chair terrified that I was about to hear that I was indeed, straight-up crazy.

Instead, after telling her my life story, she says quite simply, "So it seems that you do not do well with change."

After informing her that the sky was indeed blue and Captain Obvious wasn’t actually a member of the armed forces, I agreed. So what does this mean for me, Doc? A life spent living at home with my parents fighting anything that threatens change?

No--just 2 years worth of therapy (thanks Mom and Dad)!

So, for the next 2 years, I lounged on the big comfy chair while my therapist explained why my brain worked the way it did and why it was possible to still live my life the way I wanted (i.e.: not cowering at home with my parents). Long story short, for some reason, I had trained my brain to automatically react negatively to change, however I had the power to change (ironic, no?) this process.

My therapist laid out a pretty strong argument: I had experienced a lot of change—and I was still alive and kicking.

This was true...the many changes I experienced never knocked me over dead. She informed me that it was all about slowing down the automatic thoughts in my brain and actually having a say in what I was going to feel instead of my brain taking over and just automatically feeling a certain way. I had a choice in the matter—a vote! What a liberating idea.

All of these lessons came just in time. As fate would have it, the next year of my life looked something like this: graduate college; move home; backpack Europe which involved changing locations every few days (and sleeping in places I never thought I would dare to); move to Jacksonville for internship; start new internship; move home again; move out of childhood house into condo with parents and begin sharing bathroom with younger brother; start new internship; start new job.

Phew….and that was all in about 7 months! Exhausting, but again, there I was with all that change behind me, still alive and other than the frustrations that sharing a bathroom with a 17-year-old boy might bring, still kicking.

It was after this realization that my attitude about change began—well--changing. Maybe change wasn’t all that bad? In fact, maybe life would be kind of boring without it. Maybe change was necessary to keep us all moving forward. Maybe, just maybe…change is a good thing?

I was pretty proud of myself for getting to this point. I felt I had experienced a breakthrough and could handle anything. So I got a little cocky.

“Let’s move to Nashville!” I exclaimed to my boyfriend Troy.

No reaction. Appropriate, considering he probably thought I was just joking around.

“HellOOO! I said let’s move to Nashville.”

“Are you serious?” Troy said.

“Yes. I mean I think so,” I said.

Turns out I was. A few months later we were loading up a U-Haul bound for Tennessee. I had $3,000 saved; no job lined up and knew approximately one person in Nashville. Good plan.

Talk about change. For one, there are no beaches here and a lot of hills. Yes, I cried a lot, and yes I really missed my family at first, and yes, looking for a job in a city where you need to MapQuest your way across the street is difficult, but I kept moving through it all and never once (Ok, maybe once) did I think of running back home. I knew that this was a good change and that I just had to keep moving forward even if it meant being a little uncomfortable at times.

It has almost been a year since we moved to Nashville, and again, I am still alive and kicking. Once I learned I can handle a change as big as moving to a whole new city, I started to get excited about change. I changed cars (I LOVE my Subaru); found a new job and new favorite restaurants. I traded in my long, curly hair for a short and straight look and have met new friends whom I now cannot imagine my life without. I lived through summer changing into fall then fall changing into winter and the trees are now in full bloom with spring. I am in love with all of this change.

So there it is. My complicated, so-called relationship with the six little letters of change. Like most relationships, mine with change is still evolving. I got upset a few months ago that I had to change cubicles at work, and it took me 3 days to move all of my stuff from my old cube to my new one…even though they are across the aisle from each other (Ok, I guess you can say I was dragging my feet a little). However, at the hair salon the other day I opted to change my hair to a new shade of blonde (it looks fabulous, thank you for asking). I think change and I have just decided to take it one day at a time. If that plan doesn’t work, I guess there is always room for change.