I have never enjoyed change. Not even the kind that comes from a vending machine. Making room for those extra coins in my ever cluttered man wallet in which some would assume I carry every card that I have ever been issued has always been a pain in the ass. It's heavy, it weighs me down, and I can never seem to remember it's there when I need it.
The other kind of change, I enjoy even less. Sometimes it's gradual, and sometimes, it happens in an instant, stops you in your tracks, and you are fully aware that nothing will ever be the same again. I've experienced this sudden type of change in both my personal life and my professional life, but most notably for me, on a Thursday in July, when I stepped outside the office to take your call. That phone call changed everything. The things that seemed like the biggest problems in the world the day before were so miniscule in comparison to you uttering the words "well, I have a brain tumor" on the other end of the phone. For the first time in my life, I could literally feel the world stop spinning for a second. Tears welled up in my eyes and I started pacing back and forth, trying to make sense of it all. I rarely cried around you or anyone else for that matter, because I was afraid you would realize I wasn't quite the badass you always gave me credit for being. This time, I couldn't stop it from happening. I started sobbing and rambling on about how soon I could get home. Calmly and rationally and still somehow cheerfully, you told me to calm down. You told me you were still waiting to find out where to go from there and that some things still needed to be figured out. You told me they were planning on doing surgery the following week. You told me you loved me and you promised me it would be okay and we were going to figure it out.
I grabbed the door to go back into the office, and a big tall Thor looking fellow playfully blocked my way, until he noticed the tears streaming down my face. He apologized and asked if I was okay. I don't even remember whether or not I responded, but I remember the helpless look on his face.
I sat down on the computer and sent 2 IMs. One which read "I haven't figured out how to say the words out loud yet, but my mom has a brain tumor and I have to fly home." And another, to one of my most favorite sheep emoticon recipients, who is always At My Service, telling her the same thing and asking her what type of paperwork I needed to have in hand, since I didn't know how things would end up from there. All of them etched themselves as characters in one of the most significant chapters in my story.
As the months went by and things started to change and your memory faded, my work family became the audience for my stories about the funny/heartbreaking things you would say and do. It was you who sent me back to them in the first place, because I was ready to move back home to spend your last year with you. But I think somehow you knew I would be well taken care of and better off coming back here. You knew I had a strong support system in the home I had made for myself in the sunshine state, and you didn't want me to lose it. You knew as well as I did that the phone conversation we had on July 26th changed our worlds forever, and I think you wanted me to hold on to whatever sense of "normal" that I could. Even though the world may have stopped turning briefly the day I got that call, you knew it had to keep spinning, with or without you.
I am forever grateful for the work family that has continued to be there for me as my life continues to change, as it inevitably does for us all. I am thankful that through the difficult changes that I have seen in both my personal and professional life, there will always be bright spots. There will always be sun peaking through the clouds, and while change has certainly provided me with some sadness, it's also dealt its fair share of happiness. As I look around me at the tiny terror currently sleeping in my lap and the home I share with the girl(s and boy) that I love so much, I realize none of these things would have happened without change, either.
As we all whether the storm of more change and some of us spin off in new directions (*cough* VEGAS), I'd just like to remind them that they will never be erased from those pages. Whether they
started spinning off on their new adventures 4 years ago or just yesterday, they are forever part of my story.
Thank you for making an impact in my life, and thank you for helping me learn how to accept change and move forward...both by setting an example of how to do so, and by supporting me as I learned how myself.
