Change is inevitable. I think someone famous said that but I don’t know who.
Sometimes change is super easy. Like changing my hair color. After being dark blonde most of my life, I went to an auburn awhile ago. I have gotten more nice comments on this one little change and it gives me a whole new boost to my confidence. The fact that my brother-in-law noticed AND commented cemented my decision.
Sometimes change is good thing. Like changing my job. I did transcription for 18 years, and I was damn good at it if I do say so myself. In the last few months, though, I was getting...bored isn’t the right word because there was something new every day. Jaded isn’t really the right word either. Yeesh, you’d think a communications major could come up with the right word.
Whatever the word, I just wasn’t feeling it any more. I realized that was bad for me and bad for Mayo. So I made the decision to make a change and lucked into a job that I think will suit both me and Mayo much better.
Good change can still be scary, though. When I got the call offering me my new position, I was holding the phone and doing a happy dance around my office. Ask Captain, he saw it. After I hung up the phone and pulled Captain into the happy dance for a few seconds, it hit me like a ton of brick: oh crap, what did I just do?
Anyone who has taken a new position has those thoughts of What if I can’t do this job? What if I don’t like it? What if I fail? Or maybe that’s just me. It’s hard to leave the familiar even when the familiar isn’t the right thing anymore, but somehow each person knows when it is time to make that change. It is usually only after making a change that I realize HOW right it was.
I can say with complete confidence that I am going to love my new job. It’s so vastly different from what I’ve done, so that’s a challenge. However, I am doing it within the familiarity of the department I have been in for years so that’s a comfort.
Sometimes change is...well, it’s just a crap load of suckage. That kind of change is usually the thing that we have absolutely no control over. It’s when life throws you for a loop when you were least expecting it.
Like a funeral for a beloved family member.
We are going to bury my uncle Roger today, changing the lives of the wife, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren he leaves behind because a familiar piece of their family will be missing. And yet, he will live on in those very people left behind, and I know that they will always honor and respect the man he was, the life he lived, and the changes that made their family what it is.
My cousin, Dean, gave a very eloquent eulogy that pegged Roger to a tee. There was some humor, there were some tears, and above all there was a deep and abiding love. Once I get a copy of it, I will append it to this post and repost it because it is worth sharing.
To do my part in honoring Roger's memory, I will spend some time this weekend going through photos from our wedding day from the ceremony, reception, happy hour, and dance. Photos that were part of our wedding gift from Roger--a semi-pro photographer--and his wife. I’m talking hundreds of photos, taken at a time when you had to pay to have prints processed. It was an amazing gift that I will cherish now more than ever.
The serenity prayer was deeply meaningful to Roger, and it is all about change and how to deal with it. It’s always been a favorite of mine as well, and now I will always think of him when I see it or say it.
Change is inevitable. It’s how we handle the change that determines if it was a good thing or a bad thing.
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