Change. Change inevitably happens, for the good or for the bad, but what matters is how we adapt. Almost my entire life I have lived in the suburbs near Chicago. I’ve endured loss, a mental health illness, and the terrible but beautiful winters. I’ve put up with people and myself. And now, I’m embarking on a big change: moving away. I will be moving to… dun dun dun… the sunshine state of Florida. I am determined to not repeat the same mistakes, behaviors, and habits that got me into messes. I want to work diligently on self-reflection and change for the b e t t e r.

List of things I want to change or be better in:

1. Being too reactive. I often times get very defensive and/or dramatic when things don’t go my way or if I am criticized and perceive the criticism to be an attack on me.
2. Alternatively, I want to change being too nice. I don’t want people to take advantage of me, my time, and my life. I have a habit of bending to others and “going along with it” instead of putting my foot down when I need to.
3. I want to change my habit of falling off the planet and going MIA. Sometimes, I don’t see people and become depressed and cope by isolation. This is obviously a life-long learning process for me, but in FL I need all the support I can get since I’ll be away from all family and friends and need to reach out to people when I need to.
4. Stop changing my hair! I need to settle on a color, cut, and that’s it! My hair is getting damaged! LOL.

I mean, that’s a basic list but hey it’s something to work off of. I want to become more balanced, not less “emotional”, but to be more aware of how I am feeling and why that is and respond accordingly. It’s very hard, especially with a mood disorder predisposition and illness, to “just do that” and be normal, but as my undergraduate instructor said:

“There’s no such thing as normal, except the option on a washing machine.”

Basically, we are all crazy in some way. We have abnormalities in some shape or form. We all have a story, a struggle, and a unique life to live.

Anyways, change can be beautifully awesome or beautifully tragic. I’m hoping moving to FL will be beautiful. I know it will be difficult since I am family-oriented and my whole life is in Chicago. I know I will make mistakes, get upset, get angry, sad, and lonely in the beginning and maybe throughout but I want to learn the art of balance and serenity.

What do you want to change? How have things changed before, and how did you react then versus how you would react now?

All in all, let’s change ourselves to change the world to become peaceful and a world we will feel proud living in.