Embracing change and the big feelings that come with it
At the end of April, my husband and I moved into our new home.
Prior to our move, we lived in a high-rise in Houston that we adored. Not only was it a beautiful, comfortable space, but it was also within walking distance of my favorite cafes and grocery store.
We knew that wasn’t where we would always live. My husband, Spiros, and I dreamed of buying a house we could call home. We wanted a space that would allow us to host family and friends and a neighborhood where we could cultivate a sense of community. When we finally found the perfect place, we were ecstatic. It’s an historic home in one of our favorite neighborhoods. We’ve spent the last two years remodeling it and making it our own.
While this post might seem like it’s about sharing my experience of moving, it’s really about something a lot bigger and deeper: Change. I found something very surprising about our move in April. While I really wanted to move and was so excited to finally be in the home we had been remodeling for years, it was also really hard, and I was really sad to leave our highrise.
As our moving date crept closer, I started to feel really sentimental about our apartment. I couldn’t stop thinking about everything that had happened there, including some of my favorite memories and pivotal moments in my life: I got married on the rooftop before we went to Mexico to celebrate with all of our family and friends. I made the decision to transition Student Maid there, so the space represents courage and following my heart. My husband and I signed the closing documents for our new house in the kitchen, and that kitchen is where we talked about the dreams and plans we have for our life. It was a small apartment, but it held so many of the most meaningful memories in my life so far.
When moving day finally arrived, I found myself resisting it. Instead of packing boxes, I sat in the middle of the empty living room on the last piece of furniture we had left and just looked around the room. I was soaking up the fact that this was going to be my last time in this place that held so much significance. And then—surrounded by our movers and not a single ounce of privacy—tears started streaming down my cheeks.
Instead of feeling embarrassed or trying to distract myself from the sadness I felt, I decided to lean into it. I opened my laptop and wrote a goodbye letter to my apartment. I wrote about all of the memories above and more and about how this place had left a mark on my heart. I even published the letter on LinkedIn, which you can read here, and got responses from others who had similar sentiments about other places they had lived.
I felt the heaviness and sadness go away a little after that, but it was still there throughout the move. In fact, there was a dramatic last moment when I locked up the apartment for the last time and said goodbye. As I was going on the elevator to head to the new house, the elevator doors kept opening and closing on my floor, as if the elevator were stuck. I told myself it was because the building didn’t want me to leave, and another tear ran down my cheek. (Now I can laugh about it!) The elevator finally started working again, and then we were off to the new house.
I was only in the house for a couple of hours before my sadness started to fade away and excitement took over. And after a few nights in the house, I didn’t really miss my apartment. Sure, I still had a very fond place in my heart for it, and I still do. But I loved being in our new house. It felt like home.
Here I am now, a few months after the move. My house is my new normal. I truly can’t imagine still living in my apartment. I drive by it all the time, and I feel pretty indifferent.
And that’s what is so unbelievable about change sometimes: We can want something so bad and still resist it and still feel sad and uncertain about it. And if we stay the course, at some point, we will get to the other side of that change, and we will feel happy, more confident in our decision, and at peace. That, to me, is change at its best. It represents all of those emotions.
I wanted to share this because we are in a time right now when things are changing rapidly. There’s technology, there’s the economy that is causing so many to have to think differently and change approaches, and there are so many changes that are uniquely personal to each of us.
Change can feel really vulnerable. The lesson I learned in this personal change of mine is the importance of allowing ourselves to feel all of the emotions that come with it. Grief is a part of change; for us to move forward, we have to leave some things behind, and we might mourn them. But at the same time, I’m so grateful that I allowed myself to be excited for what was coming—to live in the “and,” as I like to call it.
If you’re struggling with change in your life right now, whether at work or outside of it, I encourage you to pause and feel. Maybe that looks like doing what I did and writing a letter to what you’re leaving behind. Maybe it just looks like acknowledging to yourself all the things that are hard about this change while also allowing yourself to feel excited about its positive aspects. With time, I know you will also arrive at the day when you wake up and realize that everything worked out exactly as it was supposed to. It might not feel like it in this very moment, but I promise, that day will come.
Cheers to change and feeling big feelings. May we face them together!
Big hugs,
