I HATE change

By Stalee (one of the lost sisters because I am eight months pregnant and just moved)

I grew up in the same house for 19 years! Right up to the day I married my husband I lived under the same roof. That street makes me feel so safe and happy to this day. As a young girl I did not ever have the challenge of being the new girl at school. I got to grow up with cousins and familiar surroundings. When I got married I moved next door because my grandma’s house has an apartment on the end of her house. My address had changed a little, but it pretty much felt the same. It was very comforting and I was happy. We lived there for two years and then we moved to Roy which is only five to ten minutes away. For the first time my address did not have Hooper in it. It was the beginning of change in my life. I have moved nine times since then and let me just say I would gladly go back to the days of my childhood. What happened to the days where a family gets to grow up on the same street all their years?

After two years of transition, my little family has finally landed somewhere a little more permanent. When my husband lost his job two and a half years ago, I had no idea that it would take so long to live a normal life. We went from our own house, to living with my father in law for about five months, to living in my lovely sister Sunee’s basement for a year and a half, to a tiny condo for four months. We finally have our stuff out of storage and live in our own house again. Let me tell you it feels SO good.

My husband thinks he likes change. The reason I say “thinks” is he plays up the adventure in his mind. He dreams about how better things will be or how happier the change will make us, but then when we finally make the change he hates the “getting used to things” faze. My sister Rindi probably takes the prize of the most extreme mover in our family so far and she once told me it takes a good year to move out of the “getting used to things” faze.

I guess my kids are really getting old because this move has been very hard on them. They started a new school a few weeks ago and boy oh boy it has worn me out. My oldest girl had a sick stomach for pretty much the whole first week because of nerves at school. My second sweet child has had an attitude that I never thought could come out of her. And my youngest, who has a strong will to say the least, cried as I pushed her in the kindergarten class every morning. When I ask them who they play with at recess they say no one we just walk around. It broke my heart to think that they were friendless on the playground. There was one day were all three girls were crying and I wanted to yell, “HELP we are falling apart and I don’t know what to do!!!!”

What I did was wait….. because that is all I could do. Time is the only cure for change. I even got a call from my husband on his first day at work that I swear could have been one of my girls. Let’s just say there may have been a little fear in his voice. So any of you that love to change things in your life, go right ahead because I am going to sit back and enjoy my year of adjustment and many more years past that, not changing at all! One thing I know for sure is whether you are 5 or 32 it is always hard to be the new kid.