Change. The one constant.

…And yet somehow I always find a way to resist it or be shocked by its arrival, as if I have never seen summer turn into fall, or love disintegrate into affection or like, or a setting sun turn the sky a bruised amber. I have seen people come and go. I have seen people die and also be born. I have seen snow fall onto the hood of a car and turn into a puddle. I have seen my nephew who suffers from Prader Wille Syndrome shoot up like a rocket in a few months’ time from the growth hormone shot he takes nightly. And yet, change eludes me.

Some people live for it.

You know them. They are always changing jobs, they cut their hair all the time and aren’t afraid to dye it various colors. They move a lot. They travel. One day they are a painter and the next they are going to law school or teaching yoga. They change their minds. Often.

Do you know me? Have you seen my hair? I have hair down to my waist that I rarely ever cut and when I do, watch out! The way my heart beats out of my chest, you’d think I was scared by someone with a knife in a dark alley, I worked at the Newsroom Café in West Hollywood for over 13 years. 13 years!  I have lived in the same apartment for years.

I like my routines. I like old pictures and old friends (which is probably why I like Facebook so much. I can’t lose anyone with it.) I don’t handle it well when people leave my life, whether it is a break-up of some sort or they move away or they die.

The rational part of my brain knows that this change thing is all part of life. But my subconscious brain, I suppose, wants things to stay status quo.

Or maybe that is not true. Maybe it is just the process of it that fascinates me. I am in awe of the things that cause change. The forces,  the natural, apocryphal, that cause us to evolve- the catalysts, those things working in our favor. The impetus for us metamorphose, to mutate and transform. I am fascinated by all of it.

Really? Another year has gone by? It’s June, again?  Really, I actually have lines on my face? I am married? Some of my friends have children? My father died?

Ah, it all boils down to that. When things shift, or change shapes, an old part of me panics. The part of me that lost my dad at a young age.  You must understand that none of this is a conscious belief. Somewhere in the burrows of my soul, I believe that if I can just keep things the way they are , if I can just not touch anything, not move anything, then things will be fine. My father will not die. All will be well.

I just got back from leading a retreat with the incredible duo Jana and Miranda Saunders. This is what they do. They help you shift your unconscious patterns so that you may be able to access and manifest all that you want in life. In fact, their favorite saying is ” Yay change!”

When I was younger, I couldn’t visualize the future simply because my dad died so young that it was hard for me to imagine my own self at 30. or 35. When someone would ask me what I wanted to do when I was older, or even in a few years time, I always felt stumped. It wasn’t like I was imagining my own death or anything morbid like that but I could not imagine any future for myself. All I saw was fog. I never understood why of course.

Well, I no longer have to try and visualize myself as 30 or so ( I shall stay vague). I made it.

( A sigh of relief).

I still have my moments. I cut my hair a few inches yesterday actually. Just a few. I woke this morning grasping for the hair that was missing. It took a few moments to realize that I was still whole. I was still breathing. The change didn’t affect me in my core. I am still me. I am still alive. It really is just a lesson in non-attatchment. A lesson I am learning daily and relaying to my students as best as I can.

I am learning to embrace change. My internal programming I have been computing since childhood can be undone.

I am going to declare it today: Yay change!  It does not have to equal sadness and chaos.

It can be the butterfly.

Excerpt from my poem “Sculpting”

We change shapes and figures over and over again.

We exchange one body for the next, one precious

Stone for a different one.

One pleasure for another.