Changes

You know I always had this thought when I was younger, in my twenties, that when I was my age now, that my life would be more static, more predictable. I’m not really sure why, perhaps because I thought I would have kids by now to some women in a meaningful relationship. That I would have a job that would be doing something relevant and interesting. Whatever the picture, I always thought of my mid 30′s as the turning point when everything in life solidified and change happened very slowly. The thing I find right now is, that the total opposite is true. I have more changes happening now at this time of life than I did back then; some of them are good; some not so good; some are totally unexpected and out of the blue; and some changes are gradual and happen so slowly the only way I know a part of me has changed is by looking at where I was a year ago and seeing the difference.

One change I have noticed is that I am becoming more reclusive, turning away from friends and aquantances that try to reach to me. I am not sure why this is. It’s one of those things that I didn’t really see happening, except for when I look back and see how a year ago I used to socialise more than what I do now. Even with my close friends I don’t talk to them as much as I used to, and consequently I feel a distance coming between us. It’s really only now that I notice how much and see that it has happened over time very gradually.

In a lot of ways I could blame circumstances for these changes inside of me. Most people I know do this to some extent; blaming work; blaming a partner; blaming an addictive computer game; blaming an addictive substance; blaming something external to themselves so as to explain and justify how these changes have happened. This is one trait that I really dislike in people; that always trying to blame something else for their present situation, rather than accepting that they themselves are the ones that have brought their situation about. By putting this responsibility onto something else – anything else apart from us – we take away any power to control our own lives. We lose the ability to consciously make changes that we desire, leaving ourselves adrift in life.

Knowing this though, I don’t seem to be able to prevent life changing the way it is right now. I feel a little powerless to stop walking this path, because my life seems to be taking me for a ride without me being at the steering wheel. Is this the way life is now? Just a drifting experience where we float from drama to drama, picking up and losing people along the way? I would sincerely hope not.

The Turkish have a saying: no person ever walks so far down a wrong road that they can’t turn back. I don’t feel like I am walking a wrong road, but I feel like I am perhaps going somewhere I am not entirely happy with. I don’t want to wake up in 10 years and find I haven’t got any close friends anymore because I just drifted away from them. Or I haven’t got a special someone in my life because I just gave up trying to be special for someone. That would be tragic. But I also feel like I don’t have the motivation to begin changing in a desirable way. And that for me is perhaps the most worrying thing of all; to accept what is happening, and let it continue.

I’ll make a note in my web diary to write something in a year to see how things have changed compared to now. I’ll make an agreement with myself to make sure those changes are ones I want! Because in the end, it all comes down to us!

Padwanna!

The Changes by Mentalechoes, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.