Transitions
Changes. Exchanges. Progress.
There's a lot of change around here right now. Yesterday I said, "I'm freaked out about getting the new appliances. It's not rational and I don't entirely understand it, but what should be a good and cool thing feels scary and disruptive." Today, as good and productive as it was (and it was), was the start of that disruption because the appliances arrive on Wednesday.
I started measuring the right of way between the front door and the kitchen to discover that I had to dismantle a bookcase and get it out of the way. This meant unpacking the thing, moving it, vacuuming the area because the carpet was filthy underneath. Tonight, I unpacked the bottom drawer of the range to remove my pots and pans. I've also removed all the magnets from my refrigerator and all the drawings from my niece and from a friend's daughter that were posted there. I need to remove the art on the walls of my stairwell to be sure nothing gets knocked down and broken.
And, of course, when disruption begins, it foments all sorts of other disruption and change. I find myself looking around the main floor of my condo thinking about why parts of the room just don't work for me and how to organize things better. I need to move this over there; I ought to replace that with this other thing; and so on. The dismantling of the bookcase, once done, made other movement possible.
I am not a big fan of change. A friend recently asked me why the acquisition of the new appliances was such a big deal: you go shopping, you get what you need, and you have done with it. But I don't do change well, especially change that I wasn't expecting. And when it means I have to reorganize things, it means more than moving something somewhere else. There's a change in my mental and emotional landscape as well. I get stupidly attached to inanimate objects. The appliances were here when I bought the place. They are like old friends. Two are dead, but the third still works just fine, and I feel guilty about replacing something that still has life in it.
But it doesn't. It's a tool, an inanimate object of the same vintage as the two other appliances that don't work anymore. It's not alive. There's no reason to feel bad about retiring it; it's not like I'm putting down a pet. And the truth is that, given its age, it's probably time to replace it anyway because it's likely to go soon. I'm trying to be practical, but there's a part of me that's just not rational about any of it.
So all of this is what's been going on in my head. The prospect of the disruption and change has been stressful to me. The prospect of strangers coming into my house, even if it's to do a job I want them to do, freaks me out a little bit. In the end, goodness will result. But it's the getting through it that is hard for me. I need to see it as practice for the renovations I want to do. That's the way I need to think about it. I'm in training for bigger projects. If i can get used to the idea of disruption and change, I can deal with it all better.
This is hard.
Perspective: There are other things happening around me that are much harder to deal with. Much harder. I am running out of spoons to deal with it all. I'm healthy and I thank God for that. But the emotional well is only so deep and my reserves are just drying up. So I'm dealing with what I can deal with. The other stuff, well, it'll crash on me later.
There's a lot of change around here right now. Yesterday I said, "I'm freaked out about getting the new appliances. It's not rational and I don't entirely understand it, but what should be a good and cool thing feels scary and disruptive." Today, as good and productive as it was (and it was), was the start of that disruption because the appliances arrive on Wednesday.
I started measuring the right of way between the front door and the kitchen to discover that I had to dismantle a bookcase and get it out of the way. This meant unpacking the thing, moving it, vacuuming the area because the carpet was filthy underneath. Tonight, I unpacked the bottom drawer of the range to remove my pots and pans. I've also removed all the magnets from my refrigerator and all the drawings from my niece and from a friend's daughter that were posted there. I need to remove the art on the walls of my stairwell to be sure nothing gets knocked down and broken.
And, of course, when disruption begins, it foments all sorts of other disruption and change. I find myself looking around the main floor of my condo thinking about why parts of the room just don't work for me and how to organize things better. I need to move this over there; I ought to replace that with this other thing; and so on. The dismantling of the bookcase, once done, made other movement possible.
I am not a big fan of change. A friend recently asked me why the acquisition of the new appliances was such a big deal: you go shopping, you get what you need, and you have done with it. But I don't do change well, especially change that I wasn't expecting. And when it means I have to reorganize things, it means more than moving something somewhere else. There's a change in my mental and emotional landscape as well. I get stupidly attached to inanimate objects. The appliances were here when I bought the place. They are like old friends. Two are dead, but the third still works just fine, and I feel guilty about replacing something that still has life in it.
But it doesn't. It's a tool, an inanimate object of the same vintage as the two other appliances that don't work anymore. It's not alive. There's no reason to feel bad about retiring it; it's not like I'm putting down a pet. And the truth is that, given its age, it's probably time to replace it anyway because it's likely to go soon. I'm trying to be practical, but there's a part of me that's just not rational about any of it.
So all of this is what's been going on in my head. The prospect of the disruption and change has been stressful to me. The prospect of strangers coming into my house, even if it's to do a job I want them to do, freaks me out a little bit. In the end, goodness will result. But it's the getting through it that is hard for me. I need to see it as practice for the renovations I want to do. That's the way I need to think about it. I'm in training for bigger projects. If i can get used to the idea of disruption and change, I can deal with it all better.
This is hard.
Perspective: There are other things happening around me that are much harder to deal with. Much harder. I am running out of spoons to deal with it all. I'm healthy and I thank God for that. But the emotional well is only so deep and my reserves are just drying up. So I'm dealing with what I can deal with. The other stuff, well, it'll crash on me later.