Change is this thing I’m always flirting with. When it’s gone for too long, I start craving what it could bring. And when it’s here, oof, I can’t wait for it to pack up and leave me alone with my favorite partner, Stability. Change is the classic third wheel. Great when you need a push, a shift, a little disruption. A pain in the ass when it overstays.
And right now, it feels like Change is visiting most of us. It’s showing up everywhere. Politics, career, family, finances, friendships, relationships, even the way we’re thinking about ourselves. It’s not being selective.
What’s interesting is how different it feels when it’s gone. When it’s just you and Stability, sitting at a quiet table for two, everything feels safe. You know what your morning looks like. Your day unfolds more or less as expected. Plans hold. Things move the way you imagined them. There’s a sense of control. A sense of knowing.
And then, inevitably, Change shows up to the restaurant, pulls up a chair, and shakes the table. That sense of knowing starts to slip. Control loosens. And in its place comes something else. Fear. Disorientation. A quiet sense of loss.
I had a dream recently that made this all snap into focus.
It’s an apocalyptic time. War, scarcity, that kind of atmosphere. I’m back at my parents’ house, but it’s empty. The whole city feels abandoned. I walk upstairs into my mother’s bedroom. The room is disheveled, things scattered everywhere. And then I start noticing cash on the floor, mixed in with clothes and other belongings.
I pick it up piece by piece. I can feel the bills in my hand. Thin, cool, textured. Fives, tens, twenties. I roll them up and tuck them into my pocket, then pause. Probably safer somewhere else. I lean down, unzip the side of my black military-style boot, and slide the money inside.
Then I hear something downstairs.
I move quickly toward the stairs, and that’s when I see them. Soldiers, entering the house in waves. And just like that, I understand. Someone in charge has decided this house is now theirs. A base of operations. They move past me, carrying things, rearranging, taking over.
I push through them and step outside. The sun hits my face, warm and bright, and I feel it all at once. The sadness. The loss. The quiet realization that something has been taken. I walk to the front of the house and sit on the porch. Still.
After I told my Spiritual Coach the dream, she asked me a simple question. “Who were the soldiers?”
And it was immediately clear. They were working for Change.
In some ways I’m still sitting on that porch, feeling the loss, but also understanding that everything had to be cleared out. That what felt invasive was also making space.
Anyone else remember this old soap opera opening? When I think about Change, this image of the hourglass keeps coming back to me. The sand slipping through, grain by grain. Inevitable. Unstoppable. Uncaring. It’s easy to appreciate when it’s the kind of change we asked for. The kind we chose. The kind we were ready for. But most of the time, it isn’t.
So maybe the shift isn’t in trying to control Change, or time its arrival, or rush it out the door. Maybe it’s in how we receive it. Keeping a seat at the table, not because we enjoy the disruption, but because we understand its role.
Change rarely leaves things the way it found them. And even when it doesn’t feel like it at first, it leaves something behind that wasn’t there before.
