Every big change in life comes with a bunch of emotions. For better or worse, it is impossible to escape from whatever feelings you are dealing with: they can be trust, fear, longing, sadness or excitement, and all of them, no matter their connotation, are interwoven.
A week ago I moved overseas, starting a brand new chapter in my life. I have moved several times before, but there is something remarkable about this one: it is for a looong time. That doesn't mean that I will be here for good, but at least a certain amount of time in which I won't have to worry when I should move again. And that feels safe and also challenging. Since I am a Taurus sun and Taurus rising, I don't deal well with changes. These periods of time when I have nothing under my feet, when I am in the in-betweens. Ironically, I have also changed places and people so many times, for various reasons. Some of them chose, some of them forced to. I have talked previously in this dispatch about all the times I have moved, and yet it is now a process that I am pretty much able to handle–the stress, finding new places, changing billing addresses, paying new deposit and fighting for the previous one–, I still suffer from.
When I close my eyes, I can be anywhere. Being an only child forced me to play with myself, or better said, within myself. I spent countless hours here and there: from castles in the middle of hidden fantasized countries to faraway, undiscovered planets. I would always be able to go in a blink of an eye to a place where nothing and nobody could bother or hurt me. It used to be people, now the same people transformed into bureaucracy or emails that make my heartbeat rise rapidly. I found inspiration for my adventures in the most despicable of the boredom, being able to abstract or, as many people would say, dissociate.
When I started delving into literature, I found out that it wasn't only me who wanted to escape, there were many people out there–writers, a clan I later discovered I belong to–imagining new possibilities, creating fascinating stories. Isn't that the reason why we go to the movies too? For what we attend theater plays? It is a way of abstracting from cotidianity, and yet remaining at it. Sitting on a velvet chair, my mind can travel to the 19th century, and share a beautiful room with the Karamazov brothers in Russia, a place that I have never physically been to. Or maybe to Spain in 1936, being one of those kids who grew up into the dictatorship, and had to quit everything they believed in in order to preserve their lives. Time can pass by, and that journey always ends with a happy ending: you are here, and nothing really changed from when you left. The possibility of going, but the open door for the coming back. Changing always implies a transformation.
Circa 2010, a great upheaval razed Chile. My dad is an engineer and in their company people were asked to travel there and help with the damage, since several of the communications were destroyed. He talked with my mom on the phone, and I nervously asked what happened. Oh, nothing dear, dad is maybe going to Chile to help with the earthquake damage. Wait, what? –I nodded. Going to Chile? I started to panic and grab the phone, and begged my dad to please not to go. He giggled, and said that it would only be for a month. He tried to calm me down and I stopped crying, realizing that he wasn't leaving anywhere, nor abandoning his family. He was only even asked, and I was already having a panic attack. Even though nothing of that was real, I was moving to South America in my mind, since the possibility of me living without my dad seemed not only impossible, but devastating. I would go with him and my mom, and everybody—not only him and his co-workers—would help to rebuild the city his bosses would assign us. Change would happen, and I would have to immediately get ready for it. Abandon fear, insecurities and trauma exacerbate when you are facing changes.
But changes can also relate to a stage in your life: finishing school, moving in or starting a new life with a partner or losing a relative. I experienced all of them, but more recently the latter, when my beloved grandma passed away. After her passing, I had to rebuild all the things she was involved in before: from visiting my family home to a quick talk on the phone, everything seemed to now contain an inescapable void. One night I said goodbye to her, and the day after she was gone. As fast as you read this sentence. Joan Didion talks brilliantly about this–as she does almost about everything–in the utterly famous essay The Year Of Magical Thinking, where she explores the new routines after his husband John passed away. I bet you have heard of her renowned quote: “Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” Wanted it or not, our lives are whimsical, and yet we have developed a technology far beyond intricate and advanced, we still cannot determine our futures, and eventually our fate. There are things, of course, very difficult to change, such as the love for and of your family, which I am happy–and privileged–to say that it is a joy that I benefit from.
Changes always imply, apart from all of this, a new beginning. Good news is, you can always choose how to start, who is the new person you want to present to the world this time. A better you, a more confident, wise or funny human being. A few days ago, I woke up hearing crickets outside of my new place. It was 5am and I was still hitted by jet-lag. I turned to my side, and found the back of my beloved one. I hugged him, and flew away imagining I was in the middle of an endless, vast forest. When I woke up again, he was preparing coffee, and I could smell it from our newly acquired bed. We changed places, continent, country and time zone, but the best remains untouchable. What is true cannot really be threatened.
But if you, like me, suffer from anxiety when changing, here you have some advices I have collected from years in therapy—and many, many changes.
Documentate your feelings. This might sound mainstream, but keeping a diary—or “journaling”— can help to see things from afar.
Get enough sleep, and eat good food. Even if you change places and you are lazy, go to the grocery shop, get some vegetables, nourish yourself. Changes are already alternating your body, it deserves to be extra cared for.
Meditating, it will help you to focus on the instant, to not be walking on sand but rather to feel that the present moment is the only thing you have.
Exercise! Always! Happiness and wellness is intimately tight with liberation of serotonin liberating when exercising. Move around, dance, go for walks, zip in the pool if you can.
Accept. Radically accept any kind of feelings you are having. They will stay if you try to fight them, so be kind, loving to your own self.
As always, my love to you, dear reader.
S.