Wow. Over a month since I’ve posted anything. I plead life changes, grad school, work, and illness as excuses. Life is beginning to look a LOT different than it did pre-op. I’ll post more on that later.
It’s interesting to me how we define moments as life-changing. Life before this event and life after this event. There are the huge ones that everyone remembers as a frozen snapshot in time: JFK assassination, Reagan shooting, Challenger explosion, 9/11 attacks. The “where were you?” moments. We all have stories to share about where we were when we heard, how it’s changed our life or society since then.
But then there are the personal ones. Some tragic, more that are joyful (hopefully), but each one marking a point in life where everything changed. Moving to another state, life-changing injuries or illness, graduation, marriage, ending relationships, forming new relationships, encountering the death of loved ones. Events that change the trajectory of your life, for better or worse.
It seems like I’ve had nothing but changes over the last few years. Back to school 3 times. 4 new jobs. Divorce. Remarriage. Chronic illness diagnosis. Weight loss surgery. Whew, and that’s only the last 5 years. Needless to say, my life doesn’t look anything like it did five years ago. I live in the same house and Munchkin is a constant as are friends, family, and the remaining cats. Nothing else is the same, and that’s a good thing.
Some of these are certainly life changing moments. A clear line in the sand of time where something stopped or started or both. But many of them blend in like a wave of tiny changes that go almost unnoticed until in a moment of retrospection you look back and see how far you actually got moved.
I’ve been – mostly – a “go with the flow” kind of person my whole life. Especially regarding my career. Opportunities presented themselves, and even if it meant a complete shift from the prior plan I embraced those opportunities. That’s resulted in an odd patchwork of job history and an interesting mix of skills. It’s served me well overall. It meant that when a chronic illness diagnosis required me to leave bedside care, I only experienced some regret but no panic as I made the decision to move into Informatics. When changes come, I tend to roll with them.
The only things I tend to really regret are opportunities I’ve missed. Like when I was too scared as a 19-year-old to take a Paramedic job in Alaska (even though I “had people there”) because it was so far from home. And leaving bedside care and a future as a nurse practitioner because I really didn’t have a choice. I don’t carry around a lot of regrets about life choices, and I think it may be because I did embrace opportunities and change when they came.
Since this has apparently become a “Wear Sunscreen” kind of post, I’ll close with my advice for what it’s worth. (And if you’ve never read “Wear Sunscreen”, click the linky thing and read it now.)
Embrace the opportunities that come to you. Take the job that means moving across the country. Go to school (or even back to school) for the thing you’ve always wanted to be but didn’t think you could. Go out on the blind date (but have a safe call set up). Travel every chance you get. Take that dance class that requires a public performance at the end. Life is about change, so buckle up for the ride and enjoy it.
