Comments on: Change My Life, Will You?

By: gloria, writer reading

gloria, writer reading — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:53:17 +0000

I know I’m late here, but I hope not too late to add my two cents. We chose to live in a tiny house, so tiny that when we bought in when the kids were babies we thought it would be perfect for retirement. It was squishy and cozy as the kids grew, with all their friends having houses in ritzier towns that could have fit ten of ours in them and little kids would walk in and say “Is this the whole house?” But we’ve have no mortgage, we’ve saved for college and retirement, our friends call our house “the club house” and in our social circles having such a tiny house was often looked down upon. We also rarely take vacations outside of fun at home. I travelled a lot in my life, my parents were immigrants who barely got out of Europe live, we appreciate what we have. There are “Berkeley” equivalent towns on either side of us, with Cambridge next door. We just made the frugal choice over the years and don’t regret it. But it did lead to a lot of judgement from others. But now I’m able to work at my job half time, and write the rest of the time. Choices are often about appearance, judgments of others, how much material trappings you require for your life. I still wear cool clothes, just few of them.

By: bloglily

bloglily — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 23:24:07 +0000

Susan — Thank you for your story. I think now is the time in my life (and in yours too it sounds like) that happiness comes from building something and from interior things.

Dear Ella, The permanent home will happen, I’m guessing! Having children can be such an upheaval, and then moving even more so. What I love though is how much creative energy you have. I’m looking forward to more Ella books!

Yes, you’re The Other Archie! What a lot of jobs — it must be amazing to have seen so many different things in such an array of professions. I think photography is just right for you, by the way. Your photographs are pretty wonderful, you know.

Dear Cam, Yes, I think you have put your finger on something important — it has to do with mid-life change, and how that looks. I’m thinking hard about that right now, in fact.

By: Susan

Susan — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:08:41 +0000

Wow. What a response you have gotten, all thoughtful and generous with details. So, my two cents worth…..because change, I think, when we’re ready, comes to us,even if we don’t know we’re ready. LIke many of my fellow bloggers, I moved every 2-3 years as a child. My parents marriage broke up when I was 8, and they each remarried, so I should have had an extended family, but only once (for two years) did we live where where any other family lived. I lived on a sailboat for 2 years with my mother and stepfather in my early teens, and we travelled down the West Coast from Vancouver to the Panama Canal in this time. I left home when I was 18 because my father was moving yet again and I had had enough- what I wanted, I realized then, was to take control of my own life. And since then I have had an unexpected pregnancy (first child), quick divorce, and unexpectedly in 1999 met the love of my life on the bus going to a hockey game!! he lived in England, so I had to decide what to do, and decided that I could leave everything behind because anything I had here, I could have there – job, home, friends. I had this confidence because I had moved so often already in my life. What I didn’t count on was the pain when I left my then 11 year old behind, who wanted to stay with his father. I lasted 6 months before I knew I had to come home to him, and we (my new husband who I married over in England, son attending the wedding!) sold our house and moved back within 5 months of deciding we had to come back.
So I think change is a good thing. I am learning – again, like many of our bloggers, how to live a more stable life – I have my permanent job for the first time in 12 years, and own my own house. Sometimes I feel pressured – is this all there is to life? and then I stop and think, I have what is inside me,my creative fire – I have to write, and I know any real unhappiness comes when I am not writing. It doesn’t matter where i am in the world, so long as I can write, and have my family around me (husband and new little children. Older one is getting ready to leave home….) Everything else we can recreate wherever we are.
anyway, that’s what I think and have learned! I hope it helps in some small way while you are on this road trip, and after, to see what is good about your life, and what you would like to move more deeply into – creating space in your life to write more? good luck and we’ll follow your journey with crossed fingers and bated breath – we know you can do it, but the journey is you finding this out!
I just found your blog, and have added you to mine. I love yours!!

By: boxofbooks

boxofbooks — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:01:50 +0000

Moving to the Middle East. Or maybe I should say, getting married to someone who doesn’t think it’s a big deal to move overseas.

I have the opposite problem from you, dear Lily: I am longing for a permanant home. We’ve been moving between apartments every two years like clockwork, and I just want to live somewhere that doesn’t feel like a hotel. I can’t even buy a potted plant without thinking, “I sure hope I can find a home for this when we’re ready to move again.”

By: archiearchive FCD

archiearchive FCD — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 02:59:22 +0000

“Archie’s dog poops” Hey- I wasn’t – umm – ohhh – THAT Archie!

My changes began at birth with my father at war in the Pacific and continued through my childhood as he moved from one farm to another as a labourer and then into the city as a taxi driver. When he died just after my 12th birthday, I was finally able to spend most of my high school years at one school. My working life has not just been a series of different jobs, but a series of different occupations; Laboratory assistant, clerk, salesman, carer, kitchen hand/chef, Nursing assistant, teacher. Now that I am reaching retirement age, I am still in the mix for change and will probably find a new field to work in. I will be more than happy if it involves photography. If not, something different will be fine.

By: Cam

Cam — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:42:15 +0000

All I can say, after reading the responses above, is “Wow!” How courageous some of the commenters have been. Change is something that I frequently think I have dealt with, but when I read some of the response above, I realize that I wouldn’t have been brave enough to take some of the steps others have. Sometimes I think all of the changes I have made have led intentionally to where I am now. Now that I am here, I have to question whether this is where I want to stay. But, in mid-life, I think it seems harder to jump off that cliff.

By: On the Road « BlogLily

On the Road « BlogLily — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:03:05 +0000

[...] the best time to think about change is when you’re on the road, driving to places you’ve never been. I’m [...]

By: bloglily

bloglily — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:13:38 +0000

There is so much to think about here, but mostly what is on my mind as I get ready to go on a little trip, one that’s designed in part to have plenty of time to lie around and think, is how we keep stable those things that work for us, and move on from those that don’t.

More to be said about this, from the road — as I’m leaving for the southwest tonight to go on a roadtrip with the boys and my friend Carrie (see the eloquent defense, above, of staying put, and going deep). Wonderful don’t you think, to get in a car and drive and think about where you go from here?

By: charlotteotter

charlotteotter — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:45:24 +0000

Great post, Lily, and great responses. It seems that the concept of change provokes discussion.

I lived in the same town until I was 18, surrounded by extended family who helped to ground and nurture me when my parents’ marriage fell apart.

Since then, I have been on the move. Between the ages of 18 and 35 I lived in 10 different homes in three different countries. Now, I have lived in the same house for five years and am ITCHING for change. Luckily my husband also has the inclination to be peripatetic (child of expats as he is), and we are assessing where our next move will be.

I often wonder at the difference between my childhood and that of my children’s – the presence of extended family is denied them, so the onus is on my husband and myself to provide stability for them, by being ourselves, reliable and constant, despite the chance that we could hook them out of their present comfortable lives and take them to live in another country.

By: Emily Barton

Emily Barton — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:55:32 +0000

I was a “change junkie” when I was in my twenties. Between the ages of 23 and 30, I worked at 4 different places and lived in seven different places with a multitude of different roommates (though only two different cities. I
did , however, just pack up my stuff and move from NC to CT with no job and no place to live, just assuming it would all work out, which it did).

In my thirties, I settled more, but then discovered the phenomenon of changing jobs within a company, and then I lived vicariously through my husband as he went back to school (and we had student housing, thus a home in the country and a flat in the city). As you know, we recently made a BIG change moving to PA.

I erroneously thought, “We’re moving to farm and Amish country. We’ll have a much-slower, more idyllic pace of life.” Wrong. The one thing I have discovered is that if you are someone who trends toward “busyness,” you will bring that with you no matter where you go.

By: Carrie

Carrie — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:02:16 +0000

Lack of outwardly-noticeable change (location, partner, job, etc.) is not necessarily stasis. While I believe that change can be a very, very good thing (as one who, upon graduating from a Very Good University in California, drove her Honda to a small town in the Midwest to start a bakery with her boyfriend. Lessons learned? Being a baker is not about greeting customers who come in from the cold, happy to purchase your goods. Being a baker is the feeling of opening the oven door midsummer in 98% humidity, sweat pouring down your arms. Bad enough to make you go to law school. And don’t even get me started on the Midwest. But change is good, even if your main lesson is that there is a reason why so many people move to California.)

I digress. My thesis is that staying put need not be stultifying. One of the things that I appreciate more with each year is how, even though I am doing the same job, live in the same house with the same people, and haven’t done anything that would earn the title of Change, I benefit from the depth of my experiences. Doing similar work over a long period, I can see patterns and make linkages. At 46, I catch glimmers of the wisdom that I think will reveal itself to me in the future.

We all have a certain amount of energy to expend in the world. If I have to expend it packing up my stuff every 18 months, as I did in my 20s, I would have a lot less time to reflect and gather wisdom. Change is good, but it isn’t without cost.

By: SS

SS — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:00:01 +0000

In 1999, in my early thirties, I quit my reliable government job and headed off to grad school to become an English professor. Oh, how I wanted to profess. It turned out, however, that professing (I was a graduate teaching assistant, actually) was not a natural fit. I often found standing in front of large groups of students terrifying; I was teaching composition, not literature; students were uninterested in the subject; I was not very good at “holding forth” about the subject; I HATED grading papers–I could go on. I mostly loved my classes, though, and do not regret the time I spent in the English department (I left with an MA).

Not having anything in particular to do after earning the MA, I went to library school (Someone said “Why not library school?” And I said “Why not?” Yes, it actually happened that way). Library school was boring, but, I reasoned, being a librarian would not be. Hah! I have a lot of respect for librarians, but, once again, I found myself in an environment that, for a host of reasons, did not suit me. I worked as a librarian for several years, and when my job was recently eliminated, I can’t say I minded.

So, I now have two graduate degrees and no job. Do I regret the leap from government worker to student to instructor to librarian? Not wholly. I learned some important things about myself. And I learned that being a government worker isn’t all bad.

By: Dark Orpheus

Dark Orpheus — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:48:00 +0000

My parents left school when they are 15~16, and my dad never expected his children to go to university. Up until I was 16, I allowed my dad to make the major decisions for me — where we live, where I go to school etc.

But at 16, when my ‘O’Levels results were promising, I decided to enrol in a junior college, and try for the ‘A’ Levels — which will allow me to enter the university. I did it behind my father’s back, because his original plans was for me to go to a polytechnic, get a diploma, eventually marry and settle down — with children.

My dad came from a very traditional Chinese background, and in his worldview, it isn’t important for a daughter to be that educated, because they will eventually settle into their role as housewives and mother.

At 16 I looked around my world and I realise I had known the same friends for 10 years. This is my world and all the world I have ever known. I suddenly felt suffocated, like I was caught in a tiny fishbowl and I would live and breathe in the same dirty water all my life. I panicked, and decided I need to go to a new school for my ‘A’ Levels, far away from my friends, where no one knew me.

My dad was angry when he found out. But I also became the only one in the family with a degree.

I had to make new friends quickly in 2 years — which I did. I introduced myself to anyone and everyone. I was never the sociable type — always the loner. In that brief 2 years while studying for my ‘A’ Levels, I came to know people from different classes, clubs and societies of the school.

I changed my name then — I didn’t want to be the same person that I was before. In a way, I was remaking myself. At work and to my friends in real life, I am known by the name I gave myself at 16.

At a certain moment of my life, I decided I couldn’t just move along someone else’s plans. I had to take responsibility for my own life.

By: hannah

hannah — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 04:54:31 +0000

A year ago I moved from London to Sydney with no job in sight. It was mainly because of a vague feeling of dissatisfaction – after five years of work, I thought I might wake up and realise I was old and had never done anything but work in London – not that it wasn’t great. I had a lovely flat, great flatmate, lovely boyfriend – but I didn’t want that to be all I did in my life. Last year I alternated freelance work and travelling in Australia, made a huge and wonderful group of friends, and have just taken a permanent job. I love it here, and though I miss my family and friends very much, I think my life is here for a good few years to come. I get to go to the beach every weekend! So my change was huge and scary and expensive – but most changes are reversible. I always thought if I didn’t like it, I’d just go home. I don’t have children or a partner so I appreciate I’m much more flexible than most, but I still think it’s worth trying something new!

By: everythinginbetween

everythinginbetween — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 01:56:57 +0000

I can’t really post on this, because I am younger, childless and early in my career. I feel somewhat unqualified. But with that said, when I lived in Detroit, and realized the amount of money and time it would take to keep a life like that going, I had no doubts about leaving it behind. I traded a large condo with a pool for a smaller apartment, and my car for pubic transportation, but I have time – so much time. Granted, I’m not using it to blog, but I am writing my novel two hours a day. And I made a lateral move, job wise, for the same amount of money, for a family -friendly hospital.
Ugh, I don’t know what to say, except I identify. And really, all you can do is identify what is important you and make changes to that effect. What I needed was (a.) to not live in an expensive, environmentally draining way, (b.) to gain time by sacrificing commuting and (c.) to craft my days to allow writing, time with friends, time with family – I had none of that before. Putting off home ownership and an extravagant vacation in exchange feels worth it.