Changing

I can hear it in the night. In the dark. It starts as a whisper, almost completely inaudible. Most people don’t hear it, most people live blissfully unaware of the sound, unencumbered by the knowledge that life is not static. It’s ever changing, ever evolving until it’s a banshee wail in their ears, forcing them to face it. 

But not me. Not others like me. We can hear her in the night, in the dark. The first time she cracks her dry, scaly lips outside the window and inhales. Long before it’s ever a bridge I’m standing on, I hear her. I feel her. I dread her.

Change is her name, but she wears a lot of disguises. A lot of masks. Evolution, transition, graduation. All pretty, colorful words that all mean the same thing. Change. And for people like me, change often heralds terror. 

Change came to my grandmother and stole her mind out of her still living body while I watching in slow horror, her eyes more vacant daily until one day she forgot how to breathe...

Change came to my door without warning once, breaking it down with the death of my brother and forever altered who I am, who my family is, and robbed me of critical security. On that day so many years ago I understood that Change does not give a single fuck about who you are, she will show up and re-arrange everything in a breath. 

And that’s how you find yourself laying awake at night, petrified, listening to her gearing up to wail. 

Most people don’t hear her.

Most people aren’t me.

My relationships are changing. Both of them. Dynamics change. I’ve been wresting control of my life little by little, testing my own confidence and autonomy. For the most part that pleases me. It scares the ever loving shit out of me, but that pleases me too. Being scared means I’m alive. It means I’m doing something with the life I seized back.

I noticed it a little while ago with T. The rattle of raspy wind in a desert dry and parched throat when she inhales. Little changes. Subtle shifts. Blink-and-you-will-miss-it adjustments. Less hand holding. Less walking beside. More choices away from being twitterpated. Normal things. Life surging back in after being held off for the initial investments in a relationship.

NRE is not sustainable, and it’s exhausting. It’s easy to lose myself in it completely, and decide I don’t really need hobbies. I don’t really need to get my truck washed. I don’t really need to have friends. But I do, and I can feel my own needs coming up, rising up and asking for time again. That’s the trouble with being low-key and homebodied. A lot of the times I really don’t want to exert energy. Anxiety pretty much ensures that every day is an exhausting battle to stay on an even keel and I don’t have the energy left for brunches. But I force myself out to do them from time to time anyway because those things are important.

I’m just less inclined to do that when being near him quiets my head. All the loud is outside in the house. The kids, the TVs, the music, the talking. It’s noisy outside my head and quiet within and it can feel a lot like a rat hitting the lever for a treat. Yes, I know I can’t live my life lever push to lever push but damn if it’s not effective. 

I’m not lonely here. This week has been a toe-test in the waters for me. One evening spent with the kids while T and S were off to handle their weekly stuff. And I wasn’t alone, always trying to stay ahead of the silence outside and noise inside. I hung out with the kids, had a little time to myself and didn’t need to rein in my anxiety. If I had wanted, I could have piled them in the truck and gone for ice cream. To the beach. To a park. Or just drove around. The opportunities were limitless, and so much like my own raising that my heart ached for it. Always something to do and someone to do it with. My biggest dream.

And that’s what I have wanted since I was a child. The very first time someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, it took me a moment of thinking before I told them matter-of-factly that I wanted to be my mom. That was why I became the caregiver sibling. The hostess. The homemaker. Her life seemed like the greatest concept. The house was always clean, our clothes picked out for school. She was our alarm clock, getting up and fixing breakfast, helping with homework. It ran like a well oiled machine because she was there, over-seeing it all. 

So here I am, 38, and looking at T’s hands where he’s holding out all these possibilities. All these dreams of mine like I can have them. Like all I need to do is reach out and take them. And even as I write this, R comes up with a pop-tart for me to open and hugs me while I do. And I feel like Life is trying to give me a compass point. 

But it requires change. It requires evolution to get from here to there. It requires letting go of one thing like a monkey bar and swinging across to the next with half a grip. And instead of grass beneath you, it’s jagged rocks of failure. God, that’s the picture, isn’t it? This evolution of romance for me. 

I’m watching others swing easily from bar to bar as if their feet are only an inch off the ground and they’ve done pull-ups all their life. No sharp stones like so many teeth ready to swallow them up. But not mine. My monkey bars span lava and sharp rocks, and hidden monsters. And someone went and greased the metal. 

That’s how change feels for me. There are others on the grass, cheering me on, telling me to let go. They don’t see the lava, they don’t hear the beasts slithering among the rocks, waiting for the first slip. They don’t feel how hard my heart is beating or how slippery my grip is. They think I’m exaggerating, that it’s all in my head. And it is. But that doesn’t make it less real. 

And I can see the other end of the bars. I can see what I want, like a Holy Grail. It fills me with a desire so strong to reach it that I’m willing to try. I’m willing to risk what seems like certain and perilous death to even attempt to reach it. 

My feet will get singed. My hands will grow tired and I will make the stupid choice to look down when everyone tells me not to. I will get weary and hurt, and my strength will wane at times, but I want that prize. I want that future. I want that life even if I have to fight for every single grip and hand-hold along the way. Even if I have to battle for every breath. Because I can’t just hang here over this precipice forever. 

Staying isn’t an option, because it will guarantee failure. If I’m moving then at least I’m trying and not giving up. The swing to make the next bar might be utterly terrifying, but it’s better than certain failure. And so I face my biggest challenge of my 30s. 

Focus on the goal. Build the life you were saving from the grave. Even if the very idea of change makes you feel cold to the bottom of your soul.

Because we can’t stay here. I can’t stay here. I can’t keep holding on to what’s familiar and not sustainable for fear of the unknown. 

And Change doesn’t have to be bad. It’s true I haven’t really experienced it in a good capacity and that’s why it looks like lava and teeth. But it could be. It could be. And isn’t that the only assurance you had when you chose a bleak, dark and foggy path all those years ago? The hope that something better laid ahead was all that got you through some of the darkest nights in your memory. That little ember of hope. Maybe it was this future glowing all the way into the past for you to hold onto.

I know where I have been. I know where I want to go. I don’t yet know how to bridge the gap between them, and my legs feel shaky, but they haven’t failed me yet. 

Others can hear her now. I pointed her out. She’s not wailing yet but she’s warming up the pipes. It won’t be long. 

It won’t be long now.