PJ and I are going to a discussion on melancholy and transition tonight. From what I understand of the discussion, it is about the phenomenon of people desiring change who then become depressed when change actually occurs. When I first heard about the topic, I thought, “Not me, I love change,” and I do sometimes.
However, I have been observing myself this week and realizing that I do not necessarily get melancholy when change comes, I often get angry. I get angry when grief comes to visit again. Earlier this week, I posted about a guy who asked me out who was completely unbefitting me. I took the post down because I was just ranting and because I realized that, while I was angry about the inept way men make their dating selections, I was angrier about some grief that is coming into my life. Maybe that is not even accurate. Eh, it is my story. I am sticking to it.
The past two years of my life have been jammed packed with transitions. Recently, I have been thinking that maybe things were just about to settle in and I would be able to sit tight for a little while. I have been developing new friendships. I have a good job. I was accepted to the academic program I have been pursuing. I have nested in my new apartment. But no, I have more changes going on.
Here’s the irony: I am more than a little bit pissed to be going through more transition right now; but, I also think I actually want these changes. You know when something has been nagging at you for an extended period of time and you just have not been willing to do anything about it? You know when you can see that something just is not good for you and you keep doing it anyway? Yeah, I know we all can relate to this. Another funny thing about this is that it all relates to self-responsibility—something that I openly endorse at every opportunity. I am not liking it today. Alas, I will stand up and be responsible for myself because I want to be as self-loving as I can be, and this means not continuing to do things that are not good for me.
I walked with a young friend today. She feels really stuck and her idea for resolving that was to go out and do something radically thrilling, like learning to fly a helicopter. I was thinking, “Fixing. Distracting.” The more we talked; she started to come into awareness that she is stuck emotionally. She ended a terrible relationship over two years ago and never really seemed to recover from it. By the end of our conversation, she admitted that the radically thrilling thing she needed to do was seek counseling. I assured her that it would be radically thrilling if she stuck with it. Change for the better, not for the sake of temporarily changing how you feel. I felt hopeful for my friend this morning. And in that process, I felt hopeful for myself.
I will write about the discussion later. My melancholy is greatly diminished by the knowledge that I get to spend the evening with PJ! My life rocks!
I'm looking forward to hearing about this. In my little family (me, son and husband), we all have little quirky reactions to change. I enjoy change so long as I have a reasonable amount of time to adjust to the idea. The proper amount of time is not something that is set, and it varies depending on the degree of change. Like, if my husband announces at 6:30 that we are going to meet his dad for dinner at 7:30 when I already had it in my head I was settling in for the night, I get peeved. The same announcement at the beginning of the day might slightly annoy me. That announcement the day prior wouldn't ruffle my feathers at all.
ReplyDeleteMy son gets very prickly about change. He is fine (mostly) with the drop everything and go out to dinner plans, but move his TV video game setup from one side of the basement to the other, even if we told him that was how the set up would eventually be once the house was built (so he had MONTHS) to get ready for the idea it would be moving, and my kid gets cranky all day. He complains that we should have warned him the day before (I said, "why? we were going to move it anyway, and you knew that since before the house was built") or that someone should have asked him first. A week later, he is still complaining he doesn't like it as well as the way it was before, even though it is a huge improvement over the way it was set up before. I told my husband we should never have set it up in the temporary spot to begin with because I could have predicted this reaction. It was my husband's dumb idea to put the setup in the wrong corner, for god knows what dumb reason.
My husband will only wear blue, green and navy, his hair a certain way, and certain types of fabrics. I'm drawing a bit of a blank about other ways he has trouble with change, but there are definitely more. He often says, "I hate change" as his reason for not liking something or wanting to do something. Luckily for me, he will usually come along with me, maybe because I will do what I like with or without him.
I can relate to being angered or feeling out of sorts about change, but not so much about the melancholy. The only time I can think of feeling sad about a change was when we moved to Italy for a 6 month stint, and our luggage was lost for a week. It was August and most of the shops were closed for the month, and I found myself sitting in our bathroom sobbing and wishing I'd never decided Italy would be a grand adventure. Another week later, I was thrilled with Italy and spent the rest of the duration never wanting to leave (and I still would love to buy a villa there.)