When
When is the best time to make major change?
The answer is simple though not necessarily easy. When you are in control is the best time to make change. To maintain our best self, it is essential that we author our own narrative. We say when we will do what.
Life will challenge that no doubt. There are things we can control and things we can’t. I don’t minimize that at all. This piece is about what we can control. This is about moving proactively. This is about responding to life’s challenges so we maintain our authority.
Everything you love is tied to your home and community. You raised your family in this home. Your kids took their first steps here. You have celebrated birthdays, Christmas’s, engagements, marriages and grandchildren. You fought illness and celebrated recovery. Your neighbors are some of your dearest friends. Your roots run deep.
The thought of leaving is all but unbearable. But, it’s a little harder to take the stairs every day. Cooking doesn’t offer the same enjoyment it once did. The winter snows are beautiful, but the roof and driveway need to be shoveled. Gardening has always been a huge source of pleasure, but it’s hard on the back and knees now. You love all the acreage, but it is a lot to maintain. Your home of the past 40 years is becoming a bit too much. And yet you are not quite ready.
Your children are talking to you about down-sizing, moving closer. And yet you are not quite ready. You are not emotionally prepared to leave the place where your life has happened for the past 40 years.
Here is what I’d like you to consider: Make the move while you are in good shape, make the decision while it is yours to make, make the move while you can still make a life in your new home.
There will be challenges of course. You’ll have to get used to new routines, a new space, new neighbors, maybe a new neighborhood. You may have to find new doctors, a new hairdresser, new grocery stores, new restaurants, a new church. You will miss your friends.
But guess what – you get to have new routines, you get to make new friends, you get to find new restaurants. You get to make your life. And you will be doing all this “new” because YOU chose to. You maintain your autonomy. You maintain control. You author your own narrative.
Dedicated to my dear friend, Pat.