Counting Change

“Um. What’s the name of the word for things not being the same always? You know. I’m sure there is one, isn’t there? There must be a word for it… the thing that lets you know time is happening. Is there a word?”

Change is the one great constant in life, but the rate of change is something that is almost impossible to predict. Most changes take place very slowly, over relatively long periods of time (relative because what may be a very gradual change for a person is an eyeblink geologically). We change a little bit at a time, each day, only to wake up years down the line and wonder how we got to where we are and how we became the person staring back at us in the mirror. This is why it’s important to hold onto old friends; they offer perspective that we, having been along for the whole ride, lack. In a life that usually seems more experiment than anything else, they are the control.

But change is by its very nature unpredictable, and at times we find ourselves dealing with changes that are sudden, unexpected, and very likely unwanted. The biggest changes are usually like that (or perhaps they only seem bigger than the rest because they are concentrated over such a short period-- see, relativity is important), and they have a tendency to knock one on one’s ass. People talk of love and loneliness and fear, but for my money shock is probably one of the most common human emotions.

Big changes, particularly sudden ones, fly completely in the face of that very human trait, planning, something I’ve always considered to be a somewhat absurd act. I feel that planning, while useful, is mostly an attempt on our part to provide ourselves with the illusion of control. Which is why we keep doing it even though it never really works-- we’re a species that runs big on hope.

My life has, for something like four and a half years now, been in a state of near-constant flux, beyond what even I would consider to be normal (“even” because I think at this point that my expectations and ideas of normalcy have been significantly skewed). I could, if I had to, pin the beginnings of all this down to one of three or four specific events, but that really serves no purpose on a public forum such as this one. Suffice to say that for quite some time, I have been surrounded by changes, big and small, gradual and sudden. I am not where I once thought I would be, and I am not who I once thought I would become. It’s difficult to decide whether or not these are good things or bad.

My life these past three months has been no more or less unstable and unpredictable than in the dozens preceding them. Yet somehow I found myself looking in the mirror, taking stock of things. Call it closure (though to what?). I found myself, largely for the first time, appreciating the magnitude of the changes that I have faced for so long, and understanding, if only a little, what those changes have led to. The experience has been unique, which alone makes it worthwhile.

I find myself now neither happy nor sad, old nor young, wise nor foolish. I am not particularly restless, nor am I overly content. I have a sense of satisfaction I’ve not felt in years, while at the same time I find myself anxious for the next new thing. I feel ready. For the first time, change seems comfortable, acceptable, natural. Like growing up.

David Hockney said “The world is big and I’m in it.” I feel like that for the first time.