The Inevitability of Change

I have reached midlife, my children are grown and are building lives on their own. My nest is empty and now it is time to refocus on me. I want to learn, I want to achieve, I want to share, I want to experience life in a new way. I want to find adventure.
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Change is inevitable, but we must try to embrace these persistent ups and downs and learn to thrive on this roller coaster of transition.

What does change look like exactly? It looks different on everyone. It fits differently too. Some people handle it with ease and for others, it is a huge challenge. It is suggested that we "Go with the flow." I have never been a "Go with the flow" type of person, but I am working on it.

My good friend Kim blogs about the idea of "Pivoting" when we are required to rethink a situation. I think this idea of pivoting is a perfect way to look at change and I define it as reframing the idea of change into an action. Pivoting puts us in motion, moving us toward this new transition or development. As Socrates suggested so long ago, we should be actively looking for answers, putting our energy toward building on the new instead of fighting the old.

The older I get, the more I seem to be pivoting.Mid-life brings changes, lots of them. Nothing is the same as it used to be. Some of us downsize. Sometimes our parents get sick and our kids are grown and move away. We reevaluate our jobs and at times our bodies start to become uncooperative. Pivot, pivot, pivot. Adjust, readjust.

I don't know if you agree with this, but I do not plan to acquiesce to change lying down. I won't be complacent or relaxed. No, I intend to take action. I plan to: push, pivot, prepare, prioritize, proceed, ponder, produce and I will persevere. Not perfectly, but I will persevere. Onward and upward as they say.

I have reached midlife, my children are grown and are building lives on their own. My nest is empty and now it is time to refocus on me. I want to learn, I want to achieve, I want to share, I want to experience life in a new way. I want to find adventure. I know that my kids could not live with me for eternity, nor would I want them to. In a perfect world they would have great careers and families and they would live nearby. There is no such thing as perfect.

My oldest child attended college in the Pacific Northwest, 1,000 miles from home and now lives there permanently. My youngest child is finishing his final year at UCLA in Los Angeles with his sights set on perhaps living in Europe. I didn't sign up for that. My oldest child just today informed me that her company may want to send her to Australia, I didn't sign up for that either. Holy cow, do I need to pivot on that one.

As I have gotten older I have found that I am less likely to overreact, less likely to panic. My son may never actually leave the country. What is the statistic? Ninety percent of what we worry about never even happens? Therefore, I am not going to worry unnecessarily, it may never happen.

Change is good thing, really it is. It means we are alive and moving forward. Age brings wisdom and we make more informed choices, we can be proactive. We shouldn't want to be stagnant, set in our ways. Change means learning, growing and perhaps achieving something we never thought possible! Why not look at midlife as a starting point, instead of the finish line? We will always be parents, but we can still be ourselves, keep the magic of life going and dream of something even bigger.

Change is inevitable. It's like the relentless locomotive arriving at the station, you can't stop it from coming. We must board that train of change and see where it takes us. Want to join me?

What significant changes have you had to deal with lately?

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This post was previously published on AdventuresofEmptyNesters.com

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