Ever-present Change

This past weekend I enacted some change in my life. It was superficial and fun change – I returned to my brunette hair and abandoned the blonde. It had taken me over a year to make this change always choosing the status quo, in this case keeping the blonde.

My oldest child was with me at the salon. He is overly resistant to change in any capacity. He was vehemently against the hair color. I told the lad that I was still going to be the same person that the physical change didn’t change the core person I am. He told me he understood but he was visibly upset by my transformation.

I tried to explain that life is about change in all forms. That change is one of the only constants in life aside from death and taxes. He didn’t want to hear about it. He wanted his momma to stay the same.

Part of that fear is the sense of being out of control of one’s destiny. Change comes in unannounced, unheralded, and wreaks havoc. As humans we have two choices – open our life to change, or fight it tooth and nail and it still comes.

Adults, too, resist change like my ten-year-old son. Whether Facebook changes their operating procedures, a store moves location, or a loved one dies, the change is aggravating, inconvenient, and/or devastating. Yet these scenarios are all facts of life. We should be better equipped to deal with them and move on yet we struggle, complain, vent, and balk.

Even when change could benefit our lives – a new job working for a boss who doesn’t annoy, moving to a new home, divorcing or (hopefully) seeking counseling for reconciliation – we tend to hold on to the sameness that makes us miserable as it is comforting to know the devil you have.

As much as change can be beneficial, the fear of the unknown keeps most of us stagnate and immovable. But if we have faith – in our higher power, our judgment, our selves – then taking the leap to change can be less scary.

My changing of hair colors was a symbolic and conscious change that I found I needed courage to do. That is a commentary on my life, but not the whole story. Like many I am comfortable where I am doing what I do.

Had I not had the courage to throw caution to the wind and embrace change, I would never have become a professional writer. My dream took change to achieve. I needed to shake up my world to create a time and space to be a writer. That happened two years ago and I have never looked back.

Hair color is a superficial change, but it reminds me that I have the power and the faith to trust in my decisions. I got a little rusty and this was the change I needed to remind myself of my capacity to be flexible, open, and free.

When change blows your way, and it most certainly will, try to take a different perspective and welcome it with open arms. It’s something I’m still trying to teach my son and continue to teach my younger children.

These life lessons aren’t easy and I suspect take a lifetime to learn, but I keep trying to work it out. A writing career, a hair color change, and all the rest life throws my way.

Cheers to change – it is ever-present.