Home?

It's been a week now. The moving boxes are in the garbage, the fridge is slowly filling up a bit more, and I am slowly becoming less dependent on my GPS to get me around the city.

One week ago last night I couldn't sleep a wink. I was so terrified about leaving the world as I knew it behind to take a difficult trade in a new town. I wanted life to stop moving so damn fast. Maybe if things were put on pause, I could pause, and take a breath. One day I'm at a job interview, then seemingly the next day I'm in an empty unfurnished apartment, then the next I'm at a U-Haul rental. The pace felt blistering.

Last night, I ended up going to bed early. I was so exhausted from the ultimate tournament I played in all day that day and the day before. Sleep in my bed seemed attractive compared to the floor of a hotel room with a group of men who just recently stopped feeling like strangers. Now I consider these men friends. Just one week ago it felt like it would take months to feel at home, but when I got out of the car from the drive home, I couldn't help but feel a wave of comfort overcome me. As if I had finally arrived. As if I had come home.

One week. In one week I found that life doesn't ever stop and wait. In order to be at peace with the direction of my life I had to move with it. Harmony will never exist in strife, and in order for me to experience that I had to stop fighting against my vector. A huge part of me wanted to view my plight as leaving my comfort zone, but my paradigm slowly shifted from a "leaving" mentality to that of an "entering" mentality. After a few days I was no longer leaving home, but entering a new lot. It wasn't like this place had become a consolation for a lost familiarity anymore; instead it was an adventure.

I think back to all the experiences where things changed and I thought they would be the death of me: moving to college, changing majors, dropping to part-time status and working, etc. All those changes started rough. But as time went on, I found a rhythm. I found different friends in the different circles I became close with. Routines and rituals found their way into my life, and after a while, when I got a feel for my system, things became more natural. The hard part of it all was leaving old friends and senses of comfort behind. I tried to keep everything in light of the changes, but it didn't work. Dorm friends weren't seen as often as work friends, who weren't seen as often as the friends I had made within my major. It took conscious work to just let the shift happen, and be confident enough in myself that I will survive the quake, and thrive in the outcome.

I'm discovering now how terrifying change truly isn't.