are you changing again?

There’s a home video of my sisters and I from the Halloween of 2005. It starts with an image of the dark hallway that led to our multi-coloured floor bathroom in the bungalow on Armstrong Street. Down the hall and to the left was my baby sister Talia’s room, who in the video is struggling to change into whatever new outfit she was putting on. As Tal talks in her adorable 2-year-old way, my dad asks “Are you changing again?” and then for a second time, “Are you changing again?” as Tal nods her head and my dad walks out of the room to find the rest of the family preparing for Halloween festivities.

I thought of that video this evening as I pondered the depth of words written below.

Elizabeth Fieser begins with a quotation from Brianna Madia:

"I want to deeply embrace the complicated entirety of myself and the deep change I’m undergoing" (Brianna Madia).
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If this doesn't stop you in your tracks, it will one day. It will stop you in your tracks because change like this is unavoidable in the human experience. The change Brianna is talking about is a monumental shift, a movement as shaking to our core as the rearranging of the continents after Pangea. It is the familiar becoming unfamiliar to hopefully become familiar again.
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But the last part, the unfamiliar becoming familiar again, is not guaranteed and it is the hardest part. It is what Brianna (I think) means by her embracing the complicated entirety- in order for the unfamiliar to even remotely start to feel like home, you have to embrace the new landscape of your soul.
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And a big challenge with that embrace is remembering that embracing the new landscape is a solitary experience and not a given with the people who have grown used to and expectant of the old versions of our soul.
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Those people stand on the old continent as we break apart and oceans start to separate us. Sometimes there is a fierce goodbye and sometimes there is a slow painful drift. Both leave "embracing" even more challenging when you awake to realize that it is only you that you need to embrace.
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That isn't to say that there won't be new people who are on your continent ready to hold your soul in soft hands and your existence in an endless space of support. But to embrace yourself, loving your change has to come first.
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Thanks, Brianna, for the words that will dance in my mind for days.

- Elizabeth Fieser

If this year has taught me anything so far, it is that change is one of the very few constant forces in my life. No matter how hard I try to be in control, in reality, I never am. Change gives way to feelings of uncertainty and that is where I currently lie. I am learning not to run from uncertainty but embrace it like an oncoming wave. Fear is not my enemy. I will change, again and again and again and again.

At some point this year, I grew tired of the blog. Tired of writing out my adventures and experiences to people behind a screen (If you’re reading this, thank you. I appreciate you). I needed to be inspired by my writing again, not feeling like I had to document every moment through my words for a future me to reflect upon. I’ve come back to my creativity and writing now after a few long months of patiently waiting for a new rush of inspiration to hit. I’m ready to take this blog in a new direction. Less focused on documenting moments (which will still happen time and again) and more focused on me exploring topics and feelings that are important and pivotal to me at that moment in my life.

Are you changing again too, dear reader? I hope so.

All for now,

All my love,

Onward.

-m