On a Dime

And suddenly you’ll change.

September is always a time when a lot of people move, and that was the talk of the office for a time. People were scoping out new living situations, scheduling movers, and making the last minute decisions. You always feel like you’re hanging on by the skin of your teeth, like everything happens at the last possible moment, but that’s just the nature of moving, especially in the city. Things happen quickly, and through it all, you have to keep telling yourself that everything will work out. Tell yourself this as many times as you need to. Most likely everything will work out, but it won’t feel like it when you’re in the middle of it. It’s in that swirl of chaos where life feels unmanageable. It’s where any little thing that goes wrong could upset the entire balance of your life.

I’m grateful I don’t have to move, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t given it some serious thought. My lease isn’t up until April, but I’ve been wondering how much longer I want to keep living alone. Maybe the experiment has run its course, and I’m willing to admit that while it’s liberating to live by yourself, that company can be a welcome distraction, especially if you understand each other. It doesn’t take much interaction, but rather, a ten-minute conversation each day can really take your mind off of things. No matter how much of an introvert you claim to be, a little human interaction can go a long way, and can make you feel a little less alone. It can get you outside of yourself, and reconnect you with the world. Sometimes we don’t realize how much we need that.

When I first started scoping out a place to live, the apartment I was considering had a crazy roof deck, but in my own self-doubt, I realized just how alone the apartment would leave me. I began to have visions of incredible isolation in a neighborhood where I knew no one. It was close to my work, which was convenient, but then I’d be spending more time alone than was necessary. I know myself well, well enough to know that this is a recipe for disaster.

I slept on it, the decision, and arrived at a different conclusion. I woke up on a Sunday morning, and realized that I could possibly find an apartment in the same complex as some friends, and the decision seemed to make itself. It’s as if something was guiding me towards it, and I know longer had to worry. As it turned out, there was an apartment available, right down the hall from my two friends who moved out some months later.

It’s been over a year, and now I’m reconsidering my position on things. After all, I grew up in a house with five other people, and although the chaos could get overwhelming, it taught me so much about how to live with others. The skills I’ve learned are now just sitting there idle, with nothing to do, and while living alone was something I did want when I moved into the city, I’m not sure it’s something that I want going forward. As several of my friends leave their single pads for the comfort of friends and random roommates, it’s hard not to be inspired. Meeting new people is something that I truly enjoy. I never know what I’ll find out in conversation, and if there’s anything I’ve learned in life, it’s that you can hear all the stories you want, and still not fully know someone.

—-

I don’t know when the change came, but the more I think about it, the more I don’t mind it.

Life is strange in that you can think something in one moment, and it can change without your realizing it. Soon, something you used to love becomes something you dislike, or that you avoid altogether. You grow, you change, and parts of you that are no longer needed are let go. Maybe you pick them back up later on in life, or maybe they really are gone, and you’re moving on to become whoever you’re going to become in the next portion of your life. You don’t know when it happened, and maybe you can’t explain the change either. You just know that some part of you is different, that something shifted in your brain, your heart, your mind, what have you. You know that something isn’t there that used to be.

Life has taught me so many things, chief among them that everything, or almost everything is fluid. You have to be ready to flow, to leave certain things behind, even if it feels like you’re losing a part of yourself in the process. It’s challenging to do. It can make you feel like you identify less and less with the past you knew so well, and it can make it hard to know who you really are. Self-exploration is key, and maybe you’ll arrive at a satisfactory answer to that question. Maybe you won’t. Keep looking, keep changing, and keep asking questions. Make sure that you continue to learn about yourself, and try to be as honest as you can with everyone, including yourself.

It’s not always easy to be honest with ourselves. We change so much, and we don’t always know what it is that we want. The decision we make one day may not make sense the next, and rather than judge or criticize ourselves, we should come to terms with the fact that nothing in our lives is ever stagnant, and that it will change from time to time. The same decision in our lives can alternate back and forth. Maybe years from now I’ll never imagine living with other people. I don’t like moving, but if it means I’ll be happier, I think that it’s something I have to go for. Maybe the message is to keep an open mind, or not to make proclamations, but for me, the main message is to keep in tune with what’s going on within you, to monitor it, and to not be afraid to reverse yourself when you realize that you want something different. The changes will come; it’s all about how you respond to them. Thanks for reading.

Advertisement