Adapting to Pain and Loss During Life Changes
Things don't always stay where we left them.
I once knew a boy who was three.
He had a strong attachment to where people and things were located spatially. Very observant of his environment.
So if he knew I was in one place, but I moved somewhere else when he was not looking, he’d notice, get confused, and say:
“I thought you were over there,” while pointing to where he expected me to be.
He seemed fairly disturbed by this.
By the notion that things move and change without his awareness or prior authorization.
Through that lens, I can relate rather well to his confusion. Can you?
That boy was a former girlfriend's son.
I intended to marry his mother, and this marked my first and only sneak peak at what it might be like being a dad.
In other words, I loved that kid in a special and soul-rending way. And I promised him and his sisters that I'd always be there for them.
When my relationship with his mother did not work out, I relocated back to where I'm from. 2,323 miles away.
I found myself deeply haunted by the heart-twisting feeling of, “I thought I was over there…”
And of course, people do this all the time in their own ways with their own things.
People who are three, people who are one hundred. Even cats and dogs do this.
A universal conundrum
Once I moved a dog's chew toy when he wasn't looking.
Confused, he looked around, sniffing about frantically.
Then when he looked away again, I put it back.
When he saw it, his bewilderment was palpable.
I laughed, while thinking, "I wonder if something like this is actually what's going on when I can't find my keys."
We’re confused when things aren’t where we left them.
Our wallets, purses, and keys.
Also our hearts and minds. Desires and hopes and dreams.
Everything moves eventually. To expect otherwise would be insane. Change is the only constant.
We can change and flow with it, or be a rock standing firm in rushing waters.
There are times to flow, and times to be firm.
But it’s tricky, because knowing the difference and choosing when to stand firm is also a form of flowing…
If you demand a person or situation to stay the same, but change inevitably transpires, this leaves you attached to that which no longer exists.
That’s the stuff of insatiable restlessness and malcontent.
You can try to force whatever the object of your attachment back into your preferred configuration.
Even if you succeeded, you might find that what you preferred before is no longer ideal.
Because you changed.
Because everything changes.
Yeah, yeah, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
That’s true too in its own way. But not pragmatic in these contexts.
Now days, I aspire to skip from,
“I thought you were over there,”
to
“You were over there, and now you are elsewhere. I may not have seen it coming, but that's how life goes and I resolve to be OK with it.”
No doubt about it. Change can suck.
When change sucks, how can you modify your attitude and perspective to protect your mind and heart?
Better to think it through in advance than get caught off guard.
That's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.