Changes

The wheel spins. Life changes. A couple of months ago, I was a depressed city dweller, feeling my life sift away as I stared at the sea of bumpers to and from work. I labored in a hundred year old cellar, moving and sorting massive skids of textbooks for a school that appreciated the roaches more than the workers. I was angry, frustrated, depressed and wondering where life was leading me. My bright spot, my haven, was my wife, who was going through similar feelings and thoughts. We weren't in a bad place. We just weren't in a place for us. The city was nice to visit, but horrible to live in.

Then life, as it is wont to do, threw us a series curvballs. My wife was downsized from her lucrative, yet soul-wrenching job. We were in a freefall. We looked at our life and we decided that we needed more change. We found another town, another place that was infused with what we wanted, what worked for us. I quit my job on a random chance of getting a job and fell short, but found a decent foothold in a new university. We jumped the urban ship and moved in with some friends until we could find a place, which we eventually did. My wife is still searching for full time work, but has shifted her perspective and is looking at employment and careers in new ways. She is finding contentment in the smaller aspects of life. As am I, thanks to our new surroundings.

Life has gone through changes, and so have we. We were used to having more financially, but we are happier with less. We took a chance and rolled the dice when we moved, throwing our usual caution to the wind in favor of chasing the dream of happiness and contentment. Could we have made more money in the city? Maybe? We have more options, more possibilities here. We feel more compelled to try them. Life is still changing for us, but that's not a bad thing. When we first moved, it wasn't smoothy and easy, as life had been up to this point. But easy breeds complacency, and we fell into ruts. you don't always see the ruts when you're in them, but if you're jarredout of that complacency, you see the depth of the ruts and how far you've travelled in them. You feel a compulsion to avoid falling into them again.

Is life all peaches and cream now? No. Is our quality of life improved from a few months ago? I truly believe so. Our income is less than it was. We are just now moving from our friends' house into an apartment. We have no insurance, and my wife has yet to find full time employment. But we are happy. The area feels like home. We feel happy, content. For the first time, we feel like we could settle down and not look to the future and a new location. I see a future where I work, a future where I can grow and learn, not just stagnate with no chance of movement. Sure, I may not stay in the same area I am now, but I feel like I am encouraged to learn, to better myself and look to my future with the University. We have great friends here, which has been a great help to us as our life moves in new directions. We feel less stressful, happier, and content. But we are also spurred by our surroundings to engage in life again, rather than droning from work to home and back again every day. Life is evolving for us. Life is good.