My rendezvous with change

Sometimes change is all you need. Change in the subtlest of ways and change that hits you in the face, alternatively forcing you to wake up and smell the fresh air and settle down, cozy up to your surroundings and let life just be.

I have always advocated the benefits of change but have never actually faced life-influencing changes, which leaves me, quite pathetically, a self-confessed 'random' advice giver. Yet, I do not think twice to impart oodles of advice on the next wilful listener and most of the time, surprisingly I end up helping them out!

A change of city is something I always thought I needed. I assumed it would help me see things in perspective, understand where my life was going and help me see and understand my future more clearly. It all seemed like such a perfect plan, just waiting for the nitty gritties to be worked out. But life never ever gives you what you want, the way you want it! Unless of course you are the lucky sort and I don't think I've ever been the lucky sort.

The change did happen. It happened suddenly and in a time frame much faster than I had expected. I had wanted to take my time to realise such a life-altering decision but I was in this new place before I was even fully aware of the move.

Eventually the new did set in and I did realise that I had made the biggest mistake of my life. I missed everything. The old house, the old life, the old people and at times it even felt like I missed the old air. A friend told me this new place was amazing, it had helped her in many uncountable ways; especially thanks to the anonymity it gave her. I had hoped it would do the same for me. What I failed to realise however, was that I didn't need or want anonymity. I thrived on knowing and being known. This lack of identity was robbing even the little hope I had left on the possible benefits.

I needed reassurances. I needed love. I needed the joy of waking up to a familiar presence, a familiar room and familiar people. I needed familiar food, familiar languages, familiar accents and most of all a familiar me.

What this move helped me realise is that we are defined by everything around us, whether we agree with it or not. Believing that one defines oneself is fine, but open your eyes a little more and you'll see and eventually realise that you are where you're at, whom you're with and what you're doing. You're as much as the city you live in, as you are the clothes you wear. Identities are as influenced by your surroundings are you influence things around you.

This truth might seem far too simple to have needed a realisation. But for someone like me, it did and how! I needed to learn it the hard way. That a status quo is never just a 'status quo'. It becomes one when you decide to let it become one. So while at the end, it's all about the self. One must realise that the self is often defined by everything thing else around it. Maybe that's what change eventually teaches you. To relish what you have, when you finally realise you've actually lost it.