Tuesday, October 18, 2011

I'm a hypocrite. Buy me a fruity drink.

Not so long ago I made the mistake of waxing rhapsodic about change, and why it's important, and what it supposedly accomplishes.  I mean, I seriously seemed to be saying that changing was a good thing, that it shook you out of your complacency and challenged you to live in the moment and take nothing for granted.  I even derided people for not supporting those who initiated the change in their lives, coddling instead those who had change thrust on them -- and not in a good, alms-type way.

Well, here I go initiating change, and I really, really hate myself right now.

My life is not something anyone would aspire to.  It's not super-exciting; I'm not a part-time skydive instructor or belly dancer or celebrity impersonator.  I don't channel spirits.  I don't even have the thrill of watching pro wrestling on any consistent basis.  (Hell, I'm not even cool enough to say that I've wanted to watch it consistently.)  I'm just a writer who decided to get an administrative job in order to pay the bills and occasionally indulge in my gadget habit.

Oh my word, it's a pizza cutter that looks like a circular saw.  Do you take Visa?


Well, yesterday I found out that my administrative job doesn't want me anymore.  By the end of the month I'm going to be out on my tuckus, another member of the unemployed.

Seriously, it's not me.  They've been laying people off in droves around here.  I'd say about a full fifth of the place is empty.  I've kinda seen this coming, and I've been, unfortunately, almost smug about the fact that I have a Plan B.

The thing is this: I was going to leave this job anyway.  Tim and I have been planning for years that we would relocate to somewhere with a far friendlier climate.  We had even decided on the time of year that we would go.

But, hypocrite that I am, instead of aggressively planning for the date by cancelling the cable and calling a moving company and just getting the freak up there already, I fell into an endless string of days dominated by the notion that "I'll get around to it."

Why?

Because I love my life.  It's comfortable.  My home is not a showplace, but it's beautiful to me.  I have had a good paying job doing work that I enjoyed.  I had a routine, and I could hang my hat on that routine and grow old into that routine.

Did you hear that?

Grow. Old.

I was ready to trade in all my dreams and fancies for the comforts around me, a soft little nest into which a geriatric mouse curls itself up to die.

When I moved to Austin, I was 18 years old.  I didn't give two shits about the fact that my life was changing irrevocably.  I was a kid, and kids don't stop their lives over the thought that they'll miss their childhood bedroom, and they'd never again wake up in the middle of the night to realize they could hear their parents snoring softly in the room across the hall, or that all of the music they loved would be replaced in a matter of five years by music that makes them want to either cry or punch a keyboardist in the face.  Kids live their lives; they move into their future with heads held high and barely a backwards glance.

I'm not a kid anymore.  I've grown up and gotten married.  I've learned the tenuous nature (by misadventure) of a credit rating, and how it can affect your life in ways you could have never expected.  I've learned how close we all really stand to the edge of the world as we know it, and how easy it would be to fall off into a different world, full of sadness and regrets and poverty and despair.  I'm a scared adult, and leaving the soft, cushiony nest of my home and my life is . . .

TERRIFYING.




That's it, folks.  I'm terrified.  I know I'll find another job.  As my husband says, it's my superpower.  I know I'll love living in that part of the country.  But I will go home every day for the next two weeks and gaze around at the home Tim and I bought together, filled with symbols of our toil and shared taste, think of the memories we made there -- and yeah, I'll probably cry.

So when you see me, could you do me a favor?  Buy me a fruity drink.  Then tell me the following, with no paraphrasing or omissions:

"GET THE FUCK OVER IT, YOU HYPOCRITE."


Much obliged.  Really.

10 comments:

  1. You never said you weren't one of those geriatric mice...so you'll have to work a bit harder to earn the dubious title of hypocrite.

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  2. I was a hypocrite because I was the "Change is Good!" Pollyanna, and now I'm the "Change is Bad! I'm hiding under the bed!" Chicken Little.

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  3. we're all hypocrites. we've all talked the big talk of change and then hide in our lil holes like scared rabbits. we all do it. now, no matter what you do, change has been thrown at you. :) you know you'll survive. so use the fear. Use it as an adrenaline rush to get you to the next step in your life. By the way, I'm a hypocrite for giving you this advice LOL

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  4. I prefer to think of your early "change is good mantra" as the anticipatory pep talk for the terrifying part. *hands over fruity drink* Unemployment ain't so bad, trust me.

    - Liz

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  5. I have some Hawaiian Punch in the fridge. Does that count as a "fruity drink?"

    If so, you can have the entire two liter.

    The thing is that change both sucks, and is scary, and in the end is good. No need to beat yourself up. It's a pain in the ass and it wouldn't be worth it if it wasn't.

    You're going to be fine. :)

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  6. Oh sweet pea- change is good and bad and very often it takes a whole bunch of bravery coz it's well, change.

    Sheesh, I have to give myself an "EMBRACE CHANGE IT IS GOOD" pep talk just wear an all over patterned shirt and often I don't listen and put on something (anything) black.

    Most of the time I suspect we drag out the "Change is good- I can change" to tamp down the unease and convince ourselves that it's true coz the biggest thing about making a change is that we don't know how it will feel...after.

    I think the truest thing about BIG changes is that (at least initially) they are survivable and having survived we dust off the fear and then figure it out. Most of the time change in life that is a good life turns out to be good change coz, well, it's a good life.

    So, it's not hypocrisy to embrace the idea of a big ol' change and then, upon being hit in the face with a frying pan of fearsome the fearsome reality of what the change will mean to then embrace the fear as well. I think it's just the next step.

    "Woohoo!!!! I'm gonna DO IT!!!!!"
    becomes
    "Gleeps!!!! I'm doing it!!!!!

    You'll survive the change part and then you will make it good because it will become the next chapter in your already good life.

    ...aaannnd now I'll stop coz this is long and it might be a load of crap bit I think it might true...it feels true in my life but then I am wearing a black shirt.

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  7. I need a tee shirt that states "Gleeps! I'm doing it!"

    I'll probably wait until I have money, though. :)

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