Change.
I had forgotten how receptive I was to change.
How I used to welcome it with open arms.
How I, even when terrified of what I was getting into, would embrace the simple fact that there was going to be a Change.
How I had struggled against myself when a part of me, the coward, wished to return to its well-known security and the other, the explorer, refused to succumb. How the latter eventually won. And how, sometimes, I let the coward win.
How I had delighted at the prospect of seeing, hearing and sensing the unknown. The delight I now see in my son’s eyes when there is something New in life. A new toy. Or the magic words, Let’s go out for a walk. Let’s go for a movie. Let’s play something new. Let’s make a new kind of paper plane.
The way his eyes light up when I utter, “Why don’t we…”
A Change from Routine.
Maybe that spark – the eager wait for Change, the excitement of facing the unknown – dies with age.
Now the very sighting to the horizon of an alteration to life’s pattern sends me close to panic fits.
I do not know how I got here… The coward begins to get her way more than usual. The explorer is burned out, from the fatigue of a million efforts.
I may despise my routine, but I fear change even more.
I may be tired of doing the same chores, seeing the same things, living the same life. But I am petrified of the unknown.
Unless the unknown were the much-awaited, much thought-of, much-imagined, but yet-unattained Dream.
The Dream does have its routine.
An expected arrival of an unexpected destination.
The order in the Chaos.
I dream again.
Of patterns in dreams.
Of changes in routines.
Of the routine in changes.
The only option left to me is the only one I know.
Take a deep breath, and let go. Come what may.
Float, without trying to swim.
Live, without resisting.
And yet, the possibility of Change never ceases to terrify me.
I had forgotten how receptive I was to change.
How I used to welcome it with open arms.
How I, even when terrified of what I was getting into, would embrace the simple fact that there was going to be a Change.
How I had struggled against myself when a part of me, the coward, wished to return to its well-known security and the other, the explorer, refused to succumb. How the latter eventually won. And how, sometimes, I let the coward win.
How I had delighted at the prospect of seeing, hearing and sensing the unknown. The delight I now see in my son’s eyes when there is something New in life. A new toy. Or the magic words, Let’s go out for a walk. Let’s go for a movie. Let’s play something new. Let’s make a new kind of paper plane.
The way his eyes light up when I utter, “Why don’t we…”
A Change from Routine.
Maybe that spark – the eager wait for Change, the excitement of facing the unknown – dies with age.
Now the very sighting to the horizon of an alteration to life’s pattern sends me close to panic fits.
I do not know how I got here… The coward begins to get her way more than usual. The explorer is burned out, from the fatigue of a million efforts.
I may despise my routine, but I fear change even more.
I may be tired of doing the same chores, seeing the same things, living the same life. But I am petrified of the unknown.
Unless the unknown were the much-awaited, much thought-of, much-imagined, but yet-unattained Dream.
The Dream does have its routine.
An expected arrival of an unexpected destination.
The order in the Chaos.
I dream again.
Of patterns in dreams.
Of changes in routines.
Of the routine in changes.
The only option left to me is the only one I know.
Take a deep breath, and let go. Come what may.
Float, without trying to swim.
Live, without resisting.
And yet, the possibility of Change never ceases to terrify me.
You sound like a 50 year old 🙂 I don't know whether the way I look at change would change after I become a parent. But I am guessing that you wrote this only because you aren't as excited as your son is when a routine changes.