Changes

(Graphic hopefully coming soon!)

Big changes seem to beget big changes.

As I walk this walk, I find that it is changing me. I find myself making different decisions than I might have a couple of months ago. I find myself behaving differently than I did a couple of months ago. I find myself feeling differently than I did a couple of months ago. I don't think that my values have changed—the same values I have held for some time still prevail, I think—but in response to the massive uncertainty I face, those values must be applied in new ways if I intend to live with integrity.

For example...

I try to make honesty a guiding principle of my life. Even if it will cost me something I want, I try to tell the truth. I try to tell it with kindness and compassion and empathy, but honestly.

So I'm leaving, and I know approximately when, and all of a sudden I'm confronted with opportunities (yes, multiple opportunities) for something I've craved my whole life. I'm not going to say what it is—those of you who know me well can probably guess, but the details aren't really important—but suffice to say that it's something I hunger for and yet something that is incompatible with my imminent departure.

What that means in terms of honesty is that I find myself having to speak a truth that was never the (emotional) truth for me before: "I'm not interested in..."

Another value I hold is emotional availability. It is an important part of who I am that I am emotionally available both to those with whom I already have a relationship—family, friends, students, whatever—and to new, potential friends, students, whatever. Yet with only two months remaining before things will change, I find myself less emotionally available than is my habit. It's still a value, but a value that is tempered by circumstance; while I remain emotionally available to those with whom I am already involved, I'm not available to new friends in the way I would normally be.

Maybe I'm kidding myself—maybe my values are changing, and if so that will give me pause—but I hope that my values remain intact and I'm just applying them in new-but-honest ways to a novel situation. Certainly that's my intention. Still, I find myself a bit at sea and a little uneasy.

Nietzsche said, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." I'm not sure I always agree, but I will say that any experience that we survive will change us. It may make us stronger, or more sensitive, or wiser, or crueler, or sweeter, or whatever. It might make us better or it might make us worse...what it won't do is leave us unaffected. And the bigger the experience—the greater the disruption—the bigger the change.

I'm becoming more daring (some say "reckless"), I find...not just in resigning and moving, but in other aspects of my life. I'm finding confidence I never had. And while I still feel fear...I am not afraid.