I don't deal well with change. I never have. It's a character flaw, I know. The worst kind of change, for me, are departures. At this point in my life I'm closer to the grave than to the cradle so, by now, you would think that I have adapted, evolved, come up with coping mechanisms. That could not be further from the truth. As a matter of fact, I think it's gotten worse.
It's rather selfish, wanting things to always stay the same. Logically, I know this. I am fully aware that I am more interested in maintaining balance in my own ecosystem than the evolution of man. To be quite honest, I completely identified with the father figure in "The Croods" and I think the family kill circle is rational mechanism of protection.
I think (and I realize that this post is full of the work "I") I take all types of change personally. For whatever reason, I just can't shake off those last vestiges of deep-rooted insecurity and when someone leaves I don't know how to NOT take it as a ballot cast in the "loves me not" bucket. Is this thinking f*cked up, rudimentary and childish? Yes.
This January we'll have lived in our current house for 16 years. All 3 of my kids have been brought home to this house, we've buried dozens of pets (not in our yard...don't worry it's not a pet cemetery out there. And mostly it's been rodents. And amphibians. And 2 dogs.) and seen countless neighbors come and go. I've lived in this house longer than I've lived any where else in my entire life. We've done 2 additions and added a swimming pool. I've rearranged furniture so many times that recently I just either threw away or donated 90% of it. Lee and I have completed fellowships, modified our careers, gone through illness, taken care of parents in the setting of our home. Our kitchen table has been the epicenter of homework, projects, mentoring, finance summits, bill paying, cookie baking, late nights with friends, tamale making, picture drawing, Scrabble competitions, sandwich preparation, bacon and chocolate chip pancake consumption, family meetings to discuss disappointments and to gather for celebrations. Our kids have learned to read, done math facts, learned Texas history, written (not enough) thank you notes, eaten thousands of chicken nuggets, gallons of macaroni and cheese, been subject to inconsistent morning devotionals, left letters and cookies for Santa Claus, formulated Christmas lists, plotted illness to skip school, taken ibuprofen for actual fevers and have transitioned from diapers to puberty in the same 3 seats.
When I came to Houston in 1991 (that's right, 23 years ago!) I never, ever thought I'd call it my home. Up to the time that I arrived here for medical school, I had moved 13 times in my 23 years of life. My first year of medical school I changed apartments 3 times because I didn't bother finding housing before I left Atlanta (a symptom of my ambivalence and depression at the onset of medical school). It wasn't until I met my husband that I began cultivating any sense of stability. I've lived in 3 different places since we've been together; the apartment I was living when we met, our first rental home and now our current home. I attended a different school for kindergarten, first grade, second grade and third grade and in 3 different states. This isn't a criticism of my parents. They were young and it was the 70s. If I psychoanalyze my husband, he'd have a similar tale to tell (but he doesn't like to be psychoanalyzed and perhaps his moves weren't so extreme-in some ways. In others they were probably worse or at least different). Nevertheless, neither one of us thought we'd be in the same house 16 years later and certainly not in Houston, TX.
In the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life", George Bailey wrestles with whether or not his existence has mattered. It's the basis of the whole movie. I've probably seen that movie about a hundred times and it is one of my all time favorites. I remember sitting in my den on the sofa in my pjs with my mom and my brother on Greenhill Drive watching it during Thanksgiving and Christmas break. I love the underlying expression of loyalty and the emphasis on what really matters. If you know me on more than just a superficial level, for better or worse, I've become attached to you-like a barnacle. You have to scrape me off and I'm old and crusty. I'm not very good at expressing my love for you and your people in a vocal kind of way, but love I do. I love the familiarity of your proximity and all the comfort that proximity brings. Do you have an egg I can borrow? Can my dog(s) camp out at your house? Should we go walk on the bayou (the cement ditch with the gnats and the homeless)? The beer bottles that stack when our men-folk talk nonsense. The running back and forth of our children across yards. There have been lots and lots of you have that have come into my life, made it richer, and then continued on your own journey. We all have a different trajectory and I mourn when yours doesn't follow mine. It's because I love you and I value you. So please don't take my sadness as rejection or judgment or irritation. It's just plain old sadness because I love you and, selfishly, I will miss the familiarity and I suck at change. But I know that you have your own story to create and your own kitchen table that will be central to that story. So, even though I'd love to envelop you into my family kill circle or trap you in my basement, it is a wonderful life. But I will miss the shit out of you.
No comments:
Post a Comment