I was born into circumstances that I took to immediately: four devoted, attentive, almost doting adults, plus one older brother who cared significantly less for the spotlight than I. Growing up on the farm, it was just me, Adam, my mum, Kap and the grandparents. Though I was only my mother's second child, I was her last, and I took on the last-born mentality as easily as if there were a dozen ahead of me. My aunt didn't have any children, and I don't remember ever having to "share" any of my adults, so I learned to live as if I would always be the center of attention.
When I got a bit older, someone - probably my mum - told me "Everything changes." Such an absolute was lost on me at the time. Surely not everything changes, I reasoned. If there are no constants, how does anyone ever feel secure? I comforted myself by concluding that she must have meant other people's lives changed, perhaps because they didn't go to church, work hard enough or vote Republican, but I didn't believe any changes could really affect me very profoundly. We would all go on as we always had - Adam making C's and playing endless baseball games, Kap doing everything with painstaking correctness and being a lawyer, Grandma making cornbread and sweet tea, Mum being golden-haired, beautiful and spectacularly talented, Grandpa farming and working until he was filthy and not allowed in the house until he'd shed the soiled clothing in "the washroom."
I know better now, of course, though that knowledge is only in my head and not as yet absorbed by my very blood and bones. I haven't lost anyone I love; they all still seem immortal and as constant and immovable as Stone Mountain. But I fear that change more than anything else.
Grandma's brother was diagnosed with terminal cancer this week. He probably won't live to see next week. I barely know him and can't even recall what he looks like, but to her he's a baby brother she's known for 67 years. At 75, she's lost her parents and various family members. She knows well what that change feels like. And yet, when I called on Saturday to talk to her about it, her voice shook and cracked as if she were a young woman facing her first loss. She cried a little but tried not to, and I felt guilty because I knew she was trying to spare me, the petted, feted little farm girl, her grief. If she buckles under the weight of such terrible change and loss, what on earth will I - much weaker by all accounts - do when I have to face it?
The life I lead is all about change. I travel a lot. I change jobs, friends and locations without blinking an eye. I chase that kind of change. But until this week, it didn't occur to me that I'm chasing it in an attempt to keep it from catching me. If I can somehow become inured to the constant change, learn how to rely on nothing, avoid becoming comfortable with any circumstances, then maybe I can spare myself the awful pain of a change I didn't ask for and would die to avoid. Maybe I can adjust to the shock as quickly as I can shake the effects of jet lag and get on with things. In my head, I know that such change will find me and bring me to my knees. In my heart, that irrational organ, I still cling to the hope of being spared.
When I got a bit older, someone - probably my mum - told me "Everything changes." Such an absolute was lost on me at the time. Surely not everything changes, I reasoned. If there are no constants, how does anyone ever feel secure? I comforted myself by concluding that she must have meant other people's lives changed, perhaps because they didn't go to church, work hard enough or vote Republican, but I didn't believe any changes could really affect me very profoundly. We would all go on as we always had - Adam making C's and playing endless baseball games, Kap doing everything with painstaking correctness and being a lawyer, Grandma making cornbread and sweet tea, Mum being golden-haired, beautiful and spectacularly talented, Grandpa farming and working until he was filthy and not allowed in the house until he'd shed the soiled clothing in "the washroom."
I know better now, of course, though that knowledge is only in my head and not as yet absorbed by my very blood and bones. I haven't lost anyone I love; they all still seem immortal and as constant and immovable as Stone Mountain. But I fear that change more than anything else.
Grandma's brother was diagnosed with terminal cancer this week. He probably won't live to see next week. I barely know him and can't even recall what he looks like, but to her he's a baby brother she's known for 67 years. At 75, she's lost her parents and various family members. She knows well what that change feels like. And yet, when I called on Saturday to talk to her about it, her voice shook and cracked as if she were a young woman facing her first loss. She cried a little but tried not to, and I felt guilty because I knew she was trying to spare me, the petted, feted little farm girl, her grief. If she buckles under the weight of such terrible change and loss, what on earth will I - much weaker by all accounts - do when I have to face it?
The life I lead is all about change. I travel a lot. I change jobs, friends and locations without blinking an eye. I chase that kind of change. But until this week, it didn't occur to me that I'm chasing it in an attempt to keep it from catching me. If I can somehow become inured to the constant change, learn how to rely on nothing, avoid becoming comfortable with any circumstances, then maybe I can spare myself the awful pain of a change I didn't ask for and would die to avoid. Maybe I can adjust to the shock as quickly as I can shake the effects of jet lag and get on with things. In my head, I know that such change will find me and bring me to my knees. In my heart, that irrational organ, I still cling to the hope of being spared.
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