A Change Would Do You Good...

...so says Sheryl Crow and, as it happens, Mr. High School. He's become something of a personal life coach--like Dr. Phil, but nowhere near as smug and annoying with the added bonus that I respect his opinions way more than I do Dr. Phil's.

In the time we've been back in touch, Mr. High School has made some changes of his own. He quit his job at a place he'd been working--underpaid and underappreciated--for almost 13 years. He's now in a new job, which he loves and where they truly respect and appreciate him. He has been challenged in this new position in ways he hadn't been for years. He's become an enthusiastic proponent of change--swears by it as a positive thing.

We have a lot in common, Mr. High School and I, but this isn't one of the things. Change--even when it's my idea and even when it's a change for the better--is Big Scary. It can be overwhelming and I tend to resist change with all my resources, even when embracing it might be for the best, or at the very least, more energy efficient than digging my heels in against the inevitable.

Hubby can vouch for this trait of mine. Some of our most heated trivial arguments* are about rearranging the furniture. If it were entirely up to me, every single thing would be exactly where we put it the day we moved in here (eight and a half years ago). If it were entirely up to Hubby, the tinkering (he prefers "improving") would never end. As a result of our ongoing tug-of-war, our house has a look and feel that's a hybrid of "lived in" and "just moved in." While we've clearly been here a while--as evidenced by the clutter--nothing seems quite finished or settled.

As is my geeky habit, I've given a lot of thought to where Hubby and I picked up our respective attitudes toward change--he craves it; I shun it. Not surprisingly, our childhoods were very different in regards to change. After the age of 5, Hubby lived in the same house in the same tiny town in New Hampshire while I bounced from place to place.

Maybe we're all hard-wired to certain traits and attitudes and we'd have both ended up at opposite ends of this spectrum regardless of our circumstances growing up, but I sometimes think of our adult lives as prolonged rebellions against our childhoods. He was stuck in one place, with no choice in the matter. I was yanked from place to place, with no choice in the matter. Now we have a choice and we're making it, stubbornly, logic or what might actually be best for us be damned.

So, I'm thinking I should start trying to see change in a new--more reasonable--light. Maybe Mr. High School was right: change can be a good thing. I'm just glad he doesn't have Internet access--I wouldn't want him to see this post and get all smug and Dr. Phil on me.


*If you are now (or have ever been) in a long-term relationship, you know exactly how heated a "trivial" argument can be. If, however, you've never been in a long-term relationship, you probably think "heated trivial argument" is an oxymoron and any explanation would serve only to confuse you further and perhaps make you take a vow of chastity and then I would feel guilty that you ended up a hermit all because of an offhand comment in a blog, so let's just skip it.