Like David Bowie SaId - “Ch-Ch-CHanges”
September always seems like the month of rejuvenation…rebirth? It’s the time of year when you can start leaving your windows open, waking to a naturally chilled bedroom vs. boxed air from an air conditioner. When school starts and being outside still somehow smells like the Target Back-To-School section, even though you are 27 years old and can’t even remember the last time you had to buy a 3 ring binder. Evenings slow down back to that familiar, routine pace, but time is moving faster than ever. The impending doom of your next New Years Resolution even though you haven’t finalized your January 2024 ones.
In the midst of all this back and forth, I find myself wanting to return back to regular life, the summer simmers proving this difficult for its appealing temptation to stay out late and take advantage of the lasting sun. However, in the recent months, even before approaching September, I’ve been wanting to return back to something…but I am not sure what or where it’s back to.
Getting older is a tricky thing, and like we were always told growing up, “don’t grow up,” but if you didn’t want us to, then why did you let us?
Getting older is a tricky thing. Things that we experience are much different than they once were, or at least we have grown to understand new perspectives of the things we experience, making them completely changed. Summer, for example - three months felt like a year. A half hour car ride felt like days, and your parents were simply your parents. Now - Three months feels like 3 seconds, a half hour car ride is now what you wish your commute was, and your parents are now two individual people with their own parents, their own perspectives, their own past and their own future.
I am one of the lucky ones who grew up in a very, very tight knit household. Our family can be best described as a unit. Even before the hardships, where being tightly wound together was most important, all we had was each other. I consider that I play a huge role in my family, a bit of each of them making up all the parts of me, able to see everyone’s side and help push through the not so pretty moments.
Getting older, moving out on my own to a new city, building my career, fostering new chosen family relationships – my role within my immediate family has never felt more fuzzy. This change of pace is something I am completely unfamiliar with and have a hard time navigating. Cultivating my individual life outside of the one I was born from has never felt more selfish. I’m not sure what I’m navigating even – a change of roles, a change of perspective, a change of self.
Grief is an interesting sensation that I’ve been racking my mind about for some time. I have experienced illness in my family, and although I have not physically lost the person, there are some drastic changes in our lives that have come from it. I am getting older and although I have not lost myself, so many things look, feel, even taste different, and I find myself grieving the loss of these intangible things, which is really difficult to navigate. How can I be sad for something that is lost, but actually still here, just in a different form? And with this grief also comes guilt - did I spend enough time + energy on these things before they changed? Did I take full advantage of them while they were fully here and present?
Part of grieving is recognizing the things that you miss, but also recognizing that things are still okay. Things can still be great, actually. They are a little bit different – or a lot a bit different – and you get to move through life with what you have, brand new perspectives, a whole lot of growth… and that is truly something to be thankful for. I am thankful that although life is different and we are changing, that the people who I hold closest are still on the ride with me. Through all of the ugly and the good, they standby, just as I do for them.
I always thought of myself as someone who is very open-minded to change and I definitely am, but I think that no matter what, change is always scary. But it’s really good. It means that a life is being lived, stories are being created and from that comes the sharing part. And sharing is definitely one of my favorite activities of all time.