Change

One thing that most people who have been around me know is that I’m a planner. I’m the type of person who hates doing things on a whim. I’ll think about something a dozen times before actually doing it. I tend to steer clear of the unexpected and I'm not the type of person who does things spontaneous or unplanned. My tendency is to stay in my comfort zone because that is where I’m sure that I can manage all the variables involved. I am not particularly good at dealing with change, which is why I feel that fate has decided to do something to make me face it once and for all. 

The tail-end of the year brought several “plot twists” in my life that made me realize that, as cliche as it sounds, “change is coming.” There is not much choice left for me except that I have to face it and decide whether to deal with it in a positive or negative light. I’m erring on the side of the former at this point because honestly, what good would it do to dwell on the negatives right? Life is too short to focus on things that do not make me happy. I just need to move forward and see where life will take me, as uncertain as it can be.

I think this year's theme for me would have be "Change." I see these changes moving me to make the effort to become closer to God and to give more time to my faith than I usually do. I see it pushing me toward my creative side, a part of me that I've neglected for many years. These changes are also forcing me to pay attention to my health and well-being more than I ever have before.

I expect a lot of use from these in the months to come.

In terms of my blog life, I had to restart my blog all over again because – surprise! – my age has finally caught up with me: I had a major senior moment and lost the passwords to my previous blog(s)…if I wanted to blog again I would have to start fresh, which is exactly what I am doing now. To people who think it’s too much of a hassle to write all your passwords down take it from me, you need to do it!

There are also major changes happening on the work front. A change in the way things have been done through the years will happen very soon. I have had several opportunities to make a change career-wise over the past few years but I’ve never taken the risk of shifting careers because of the comfort zone thing. This time around the change will be something that I have no choice over. All I can do now is decide if I will take the leap of faith into something similar but new or brave it out on a totally new world on my own. Definitely no option to stay in my comfort zone here so I will have to make that decision before the year ends.

Another change that I’m dealing with right now is about dealing with the past. Don't get me wrong, there's no drama here…it’s just that in my family I’ve been the sort of “record keeper:” I’m the one who takes and keeps photos of every occasion through the years. I used to be the one you can count on to have a complete file of photos and memories from the past 18 years on my laptop.

I recently bought a new external hard drive to store them but as (bad) luck would have it, the drive stopped working after less than a week. I’ve consulted several technicians on it and all have said that my data – 18 years' worth of photos and videos of family and friends, memories I’ve kept close to my heart – can no longer be recovered. My father passed away 8 years ago and it breaks my heart to think that all the memories of my father that I’ve kept in that drive are now lost forever. Even my writing projects – stories I’ve drafted that I was about to finalize – are all lost. I felt like a part of my life was ripped away from me and I couldn’t do anything about it.

I guess that loss might be life trying to tell me to stop looking back into the past and to start looking forward to the future. After all, there are new memories to be made and there is so much more life to be lived. 

This year will definitely be a change in the way I have lived my life over the past few years. Hopefully, I can document it here in my blog (where this time around, passwords have been written down and saved) so I don’t lose anything anymore.

So here I am, embracing change and taking you all on that journey with me. I hope you will all enjoy the ride as much as I will (fingers crossed)!