Changes

Changes......

Being conservative, I have always hated change.  I feel much more comfortable in a steady, humdrum life.  Oh don't get me wrong, I like new things and even new ideas but a wholesale change has always scared and bothered me.  I have stayed in jobs for too long, just because I didn't want change.  I stayed in relationships too long, just because I didn't want change.  I have stayed in one place too long, just because I didn't want change.  Some change in inevitable and sometimes change is necessary.

Sometimes we just get bored in life and need a change.  Sometimes we begin to take things for granted and need a change.  Sometimes we grow and see things differently and need to change.  Sometimes we just feel we need a change even if we can't say why or don't know why.  Change can be good, though scary.

A lot of time, changes in men later in life are blamed on a mid-life crisis even if there is no crisis.  Yet when women change late in life, they get by because it's "the change in life" and blamed on some hormones.  Maybe that is even the reason for a man's mid-life crisis, though we don't get to blame it on that?  No it's usually blamed on another woman, or some other outside influence.  For whatever reason, I feel a need for changes.

After I had my heart attack, I went through a lot of depression.  As time has gone on I have overcome most of that depression.  But lately, I am feeling it again.  But this time it is more of a depression of where I am in life and what little life I have left.  I will soon be 55.  While that is not old, certainly I am over half way through this journey we call life and honestly it's mostly down hill from here.  I mean I have had a heart attack, I am not nearly as strong or as limber or as sharp as I was just ten years ago.  So it has gotten me to thinking about the "rest" of my life.

Is what I am doing today what I want to continue to do until I die?  That's what I have been asking myself for the last couple years.  And the answer has most consistently been "NO".  And that really surprises me.  I mean I have been working toward what I am doing for 54 years.  A successful career, debt free, family, nice home, even becoming somewhat well known in the kayaking industry....  So what's not to love about my life?  Why am I not happy?

Because it's mostly work, even though many of my friends think I do nothing but fish.  That's just what they see.  But it's not just work either...it's that humdrum life I was too scared to change.  It's not doing things because I am scared of what it might change.  I am not living because I am scared to live.....  So 2016 will bring changes.

Some of these changes will make friends and family mad, probably.  Some will certainly make them wonder if I have gone crazy.  Some changes will be personal and nobody will know but me, unless you are very close to me.  I don't know just today what some of these changes will be and I certainly don't know what they will bring.  But what I do know is I don't want to live the rest of my life stuck in this steady humdrum life I have worked so hard to make.  So bare with me in these changes, I will either tick you off, make you wonder, or make you smile.  Changes are coming.  I still hate change.