Seasons of Change

BY HEiDI PRAHL

Lover of Jesus, my family, really good coffee, and all things Chicago. I’m a living, breathing paradox.

I love change. I seek it, crave it, yearn for it. I start to get antsy if things have been status quo for too long. I find myself saying things like, “What if we….. and ending that sentence with things like...look for a new house, take a trip, get new furniture, rearrange our old furniture, travel to Michigan to try this restaurant, buy a vacation home….”

Sometimes it’s little things with very little consequence - like, what if we read this book together, or buy these concert tickets, or try that recipe. But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s big things with big consequences - like what if we sell our house or start a business.

Ironically, I also deeply fear change. When things are good, despite the internal groans to seek change, I really, deeply want them to remain the same. I want to hold tightly to what is good. Why risk messing up what we have? Upsetting the status quo could bring heartache, loss, or even regret. You can’t go back. There are no do-overs.

Not surprisingly, this inner paradox has caused a good amount of turmoil in my life. I love to daydream about change, but I’m desperately afraid to commit to it. That promotion - yes, I’d love it. But, leave the old job, the old friends, behind? No thanks.

Trade in the known for the unknown? I’ll pass.

But the hard truth is that in order to step into the new, we often need to leave parts of the old behind.

That is absolutely terrifying to me. Yet, I still crave change.

It wasn’t always this way, but when your past includes questionable choices that held serious consequences, you tend to second guess yourself. It’s easy to quickly forget all the times you’ve embraced change with no regret.

Change - New beginnings inevitably tend to create endings of some sort.

And therein lies the problem. I want the new beginnings but not the endings. I’m frustrated that my hands are small - much too small to hold onto everything at once. Therefore if I truly want the new adventure, I have to release my grip on the old. I have to let whatever pieces may need to fall away do so and take their place in history.

The very concept of change evokes many emotions, oftentimes conflicting emotions: Adventure, confusion, delight, turmoil. I’m starting to understand that embracing change means creating space for all of those feelings. Someone once told me that we have two hands - we can hold two emotions at the same time, even two conflicting emotions. And it’s true. One does not negate the other.

When I look back at our life, I see it in seasons - that season we lived by the beach. That season I took up running. That season we lived by Six Flags and rode roller coasters every day. Those seasons filled with the darkness of depression. That season we hosted refugee children in our home. The seasons we homeschooled. That season of heartbreak. That season we had a rooftop deck and a skyline view. That season we went to all of the Cubs games. That season we thought a job change might lead us back to our home state.

In reality, many of these seasons overlapped, but I didn’t always see that. The depression with the lazy beach days. The heartbreak with the homeschooling. While my mind tends to see them as separate events, they weren’t. The rollercoasters coincided with a dreadful season of deep depression. The rooftop with a job loss. A reminder that even the good times weren’t perfect and the hardest times also hold some of the sweetest memories.

That’s what I hold on to now when the fear creeps in. Whether I’ve sought the change or it has arrived on its own free will, I remind myself all of the things we’d have missed if we’d tried to hold on too tightly to the status quo. I think about the opportunities that have come from taking chances and letting go. I remember that I’ve simultaneously held conflicting emotions before because no season is without its own set of challenges. And no season, no matter how good, lasts forever.

We’re in a season of change at the moment. Big change. Like - we’re currently living in a borrowed apartment because we sold our house and haven’t found a new one kind of season. Like we acted on a vision for what we want six months from now, but getting through the next six days or six weeks is a little muddy.

This adventure has a special purpose. There are new grandbabies in our future! Getting positioned to try to be the very best grandparents we can be has led us down this path, and I find myself both exhilarated and exhausted. The new babies and the new home are not here yet. Right now, I’m sitting with the sadness of having sold the home we loved, a home we survived a pandemic in, yet still managed to create some of the sweetest memories during our brief stay. The old is gone. We’re living with the promise of the new, but it hasn’t fully arrived yet. Someday this will be the “season we lived in the borrowed apartment,” and we will most likely look back at it fondly, but at the moment it’s just hard. There’s the anticipation of what’s to come without knowing exactly what’s next. It’s not perfect, but I’m embracing it all. Allowing the tears from the chapter that has ended along with the excitement of what is to come. Learning to find the balance in the emotions I hold in each hand. Learning to say it’s okay to be sad and overjoyed all at once.

Grandbabies. I feel like I’ve waited my whole life for this. A whole new season is just around the corner. And so begins the next great adventure!