Member-only story

Embrace Change

Jackie Olsen
4 min readJul 10, 2022

--

How to weather the bumps and bruises

Leaves that go from green to red on a spectrum hang from a thread
Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

New job, new relationship, new baby, new city: in our modern lives we change things over and over. Life change is billed as a grand adventure.

So why do we feel so bad when it happens? Why does change whomp us upside the head? Isn’t the new life supposed to be better?

Take it from me; I’m bipolar, and I have autism in my bloodstream. The bipolar part seeks out new stimulation while I’m in one phase, and experiences the horror of that stimulation while in another. And the autistic tendencies I have make me react by shutting down.

Add in anxiety, and the whole package, the planning, execution, and aftermath, are all a nightmare.

I think it helps to unpack what change is and look it squarely in the eye.

As living beings, we experience change on a daily basis. We are creatures under the influence of time and space, and we have memory to guide us.

Even if you live your life like a Medieval peasant and know the same people and the same place with the same beliefs for your entire lifespan, you experience aging, and weather, and loss.

Loss is the key term here. Humans experience loss. All humans, everywhere.

Heck, my cat experiences loss. My furniture, my car, the natural world around…

--

--

Jackie Olsen
Jackie Olsen

Written by Jackie Olsen

Come for the insights on aging, leave with a doggie bag full of frogs and exoplanets. Now more poems about vacuuming! she/her/hers

Responses (2)