RDP: Change

Life Changes

I don’t take easily to change unless it’s something that I’ve chosen to do but like the seasons, change comes whether you want it or not. Some changes you have to adapt to because you have no choice. In my lifetime Australia introduced a decimal currency, the metric system, Celsius as the standard for measuring temperature, daylight saving time and a new national anthem.

Some of those things were easy to adapt to, I’d only been in Australia a fortnight when decimal currency was introduced and I was eight years old. It didn’t change my life much. Daylight Saving, on the other hand, I was very resistant to even refusing to change my watch for several years. I read of one country, I can’t remember where now who changed from driving on one side of the road to the other. That’s not a change you can refuse to participate in.

Life choices are sometimes changes you make willingly, even eagerly. I remember about a week into my first holiday in Tasmania saying “I could live here.” I went home with a desire to make that change and although it took nearly four years we did it. It was a big change for David and I as we didn’t know a soul in Tasmania, we would have no jobs to go to and would have to start over but we wanted it and we did it. I won’t say it wasn’t stressful. Moving from a house you’ve lived in for 25 years and transporting all your worldly goods to another state is not a walk in the park.

Change came again when David died and I found myself learning to live alone. In a way that was a gradual change because of the many months, he was in the hospital. The real change was in realising that he was never coming back. When we bought this house I thought that I would live here forever, or at least until a day came when I couldn’t take care of myself. Now the house is on the market and one day it will sell and I will move on again. Not a change I wanted to make but one I’ve accepted will be better for me, and for Naomi in the long run. When it happens I will go forward, if not joyfully, at least with a sense of curiosity and anticipation of enjoying the next place.