“Change is (sometimes) good.” – the Potrero Hill Gang (TPHG), 1996
“So, where’ve you been lately? Haven’t seen you in a while.”
It’s my first incursion into the gym since I got off the living room floor, and Sam, a trainer in residence, beams a welcoming smile.
“Yeah,” I say, “I’ve been stuck.”
“With your exercise program? Can I help?”
“Nah. It’s been more of a mental-emotional-spiritual impasse.”
“Oh,” says Sam. I’m thinking he’s thinking “TMI,” but he surprises me. “You know, you see that in the physical world too. We see it here in the gym daily.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I mean, people end up stuck all the time. They’re in here, they’re doing their workout day after day, and they’re not making progress. They plateau. Or hit a wall. They get stuck. And they get frustrated or despair; they figure they’ll never see improvement.”
“Yeah.” I say. “Hmmmmm.”
“Yeah.” He hesitates. “So, anyway, welcome back. Enjoy your workout.”
I nod and head over to the elliptical. And turn back.
“And they get unstuck?”
“All the time!” says Sam. “Sure!” His conviction cheers.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. They change something,” says Sam. “One thing. That’s all it usually takes to get things moving.”
“Change happens.” – TPHG, 1997
In times past, I’ve whipped myself into shape with action plans and to-do lists. This time’s different. I’m still moving gingerly after my blue period, following co-navigation by animal instinct and quiet self-awareness. I’m trying not to over-think or overanalyze, and when my mind gets all hopped up, I toss a book or some work at it. I don’t want to be lured by my thinking – which I know still lacks a certain clarity – into doing anything more that will take me off center.
How to move forward? I like what Sam said. Maybe change one thing. I consider what one thing that might be, and over the next few days, I find I feel like catching up with a few friends I haven’t seen in a while. I feel I’d like to paint my house. I’d like to find a new job. I’d like to visit my family.
I feel energized, and eventually I begin to act. And change happens. A little here. A little there. And suddenly, things are shifting.
It feels good. So I keep doing it.
“Change, for a dollar.” – TPHG, 1998
“Wow!” says my manager. “I didn’t expect this.”
“I didn’t either,” I concede. I had just tendered my resignation, because I’d accepted a position with another company. “It happened rather fast.”
And it did. I put the word out in my network, and a month later, I’m changing jobs. “It’s time for me to go, but I’ve appreciated being here.”
“Well, I’m happy for you,” she says. “Things are changing at this company, and you’re being proactive. That’s a good thing.”
I don’t correct her. I don’t tell her that this just seems to be the right next step for me for now. “Thank you for everything,” I say.
“Change is different.” – TPHG, 1999
I take two weeks between jobs and accept invitations to fly east and visit Harrison in Boston and my family in Ohio. In Boston, Harrison asks me to join her for a film class, houses me in her apartment, takes me to work, and introduces me to her many friends. I am careful, respectful; I understand that she is offering me a rare view into her new life. Our roles reverse, and I stay in while she heads out for a party; they reverse again when she lets me play mama and buy her sheets and washcloths and underwear. I know it’s time-limited role playing – she’s allowing it only because I accept that everything’s changed.
When it’s time to part, I tell Harrison that I’ve appreciated seeing her in her new natural habitat, and that I am proud of her and the life she’s creating.
“Thank you, moms,” she says. “That means a lot to me.”
In Ohio with my family, I am daughter and sister and auntie. My mother and stepfather indulge me when I ask them to cook some of my favorite foods, and Mare does my hair and advises me when we go shopping for clothes for the new job. My niece and nephew clamor for the treats I bring, and my baby sister Lou, their mother, cracks me up when she dances around the kitchen as she did when we were kids. As is customary, I spot some item of my mother’s clothing that I borrow and pretend to covet throughout my visit. As always, she warns me not to try to sneak off with it in my suitcase, and as always, just before I leave, she gives it to me outright.
Before I go through security to board my homebound plane, my mother places her hand under my chin and looks at me. “Your face is changing, you know,” she says. “You’re becoming a rather elegant middle-aged woman. You’re wearing your life well.”
“Thank you, Ma,” I say. “That means a lot to me.”
On the trip home, I think of my transformations as mother, daughter, sometime lover, onetime wife. Over these last few months, I’ve revisited these identities, trying them on like one might treasured retro outfits kept hanging in the closet. But all the little changes have finally added up, and those identities no longer fit as my daily garb.
And it’s okay, because I am newly comfortable in my own skin, on my own, free and clear.
“Change is.” – TPHG, 2000.
I’m home again. Change is afoot. The world economy churns, a new president is elected, I start a new job. None of us know what comes next. But for now, I am unstuck and ready to move forward.
And so I do.
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Tags: change, Fictional Memoir, Personal, recovery from depression, the Word Wench, transition, Word Wench
