transitions

i like change. i like the excitement and anticipation of something different that it tends to bring. i like the feel of a fresh start and a chance to start over. however, few changes happen without a transition. transitions occur as we move from one thing to another. we transition from our cool car to our cool house, but rarely can do so without escaping the summer's heat. we transition from windows 2000 to windows xp but not without all that comes with learning new software and transferring all of our other data and programs. we usually like the outcome of the change, but it's the getting to that, the transition, that is the difficult part.

i don't like transitions. i don't like them because i feel out of control. i cannot keep myself from holding on to what was before because i can't hold on to anything ahead in the unknown. i don't understand myself when i'm in transition. i don't know what i feel one way when i want to feel another. some things that are silly seem important and other things that are important seem silly.

i transition into life as a working woman on monday. i think it will be good for me, i've had way to much time to think and piddle around the past few weeks. i am always busy and rarely watch tv or movies, but i have little to show for all of my "free" time. i look forward to the feeling of production.

i have discovered, though, my greatest fear in life: complacency. heights don't send me into a panic attack, i laugh in the face of spiders, and there are few bodily injuries i haven't faced. but there is something in me that wants to run the other way at any sign of becoming satisfied in myself. i think complacency is different than contentment. i think contentment does not keep you from trying new things or engaging change. but i think when you become complacent, you become resistant to change. i love my family and my house. i love the neighborhood i grew up in and the school i went to. i love my church and the friendships i have made there, but so much around me screams the "American Dream" and i am terrified. i do not want to settle into a life in which i work to live and to support my 2.5 children, mortgage and black lab. we were created for more than this. we were created to live a life to the full. i long to feel like my life is lived to the full. i'm not saying that it's wrong to live the American Dream. i'm just saying right now, i cannot.

i was reading this week in journey of desire (incredible book) and this hunger for more was stirred in my heart. "the meaning of our lives is revealed through experiences that at first seem at odds with each other-moments we wish would never end and moments we wish had never begun. those timeless experiences we want to last forever whisper to us that they were meant to." (eldredge 12) when we experience misery, it doesn't mean that we are not happy or unpleasant people. it just means that we have experienced life with more depth and meaning; our misery is our way of hungering for it again. by my own definition, i am miserable right now.