I’m staring down the barrel of some rather scary changes at my job (the job I do when I’m not writing or editing or doing other stuff for TDP, that is). First of all, I’m in the civil service, there’s an election this week, and we’re anticipating a change of government for the first time since I started working here. Second, my office is moving early next year, and our work environment is set to change rather dramatically.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t facing both of those things with fear and trepidation. I’ve gotten…if not always comfortable, at least used to the way things are now. I know what to expect. I know which direction to turn when I get off the elevator. I know what the current government’s priorities and positions are, and how those translate to my job. I can see the CN Tower from my cubicle.
Did I mention I’ve been in the same job for, um, a while? And that I’m not great with change?
But change there will be. I can be dragged towards it kicking and screaming, or I can face it with hope that eventually, somehow, something better will come of it. The former is awfully tempting, but the latter involves more grace and more self-kindness.
If I hadn’t taken the plunge and quit my former job and moved to Toronto way back when, I wouldn’t be sitting here in this 95-year-old brick house that I love.
If I hadn’t talked myself into signing up for National Novel Writing Month to get out of my post-university writing slump (side note: never sign up for a literary-focused creative writing major if what you love to write isn’t Literary), I might still have a writing career, but I can tell you it would look entirely different. And Turtleduck Press wouldn’t exist.
If I hadn’t changed majors in university, I never would have met my future spouse.
Granted, all of these examples are leaps that I took, gambles that paid off (albeit sometimes in unexpected ways). I’ve been lucky enough not to have had unwanted, unchosen change forced on me very often. Maybe that’s why it’s so scary to me. I like having control; I’m not used to the opposite.
Here’s hoping that when I let go, whatever else may happen, I will fly.