Adjusting the framework

change comes in threes

I’ve been moping around the apartment I’ve called home for the past three years and keep getting caught off guard by the lingering smell of warm air. I’m instantly transported to my childhood in Connecticut where, during the summer months, that same smell lingered in the house and you could hear the frogs peeping and bugs landing through an open window. It’s making me feel so desperately nostalgic and homesick. The difference now is I’m homesick for a home that doesn’t exist and one that I have yet to define.

Change is hard even if it’s the change you want. I’ve lived the majority of my adult life craving the stability a home holds. So, when I shake some foundational pillars to let pieces fall, I ask myself: what it’s all for?

The best-case answer is the simplest; because I can and it’s time. The worst-case answer is that I’m looking for a feeling that no longer exists where I am. Luckily, I’m aligning with the best-case answer on this spectrum. I don’t say this with hubris as I’ve been on the opposing end when weighing options. I learned through making the wrong call that you can’t run toward change with a blinding desire for an outcome; you’re bound to run into something you didn’t see. As much of life can be illusionary, the rawness of decision-making is with feeling fully ready to make one, no matter the result. It’s in every part of you that knows it’s time for change to happen - it’s a soul calling that you’re ready to pick up.

While the standard measure of a new chapter is societally set around four years (i.e. high school, college, early/late decades, etc), I’ve always been aligned to three and it’s multiples for mine. I was done with high school classes in three years, graduated college in three and a half, and felt the shifts of my twenties every three years. Now, I’m entering another with greater clarity.

As I move to a new “home”, but an old neighborhood, and continue into my final three-year chapter of my twenties, I’m approaching it with fewer expectations and greater freedom—a freedom that has come with knowing that not all has to be defined and only explored. I’ve caught myself on multiple occasions asking “when I will get to do this again?” Meaning when will I get to live freely as I’m able to now? While guilt tells me I’m teetering on the cusp of foolishness, I’m choosing to adjust my positioning to balance in the middle and embrace the feeling of free fall that comes with a lack of resistance.

Entering a new chapter brings a sweet sentimentality yet, within it, there’s also a fierce acknowledgment of what no longer is. While my past three-year cycle has focused greatly on this, having experienced loss in more ways than one, I am shifting to see what is still here within the changes; what can be seen right in front of me that requires the least resistance to relish in.

Enjoy yourself.

With care,

Liz