What a lazy day! It’s my day off work and I didn’t wake up until almost 10 am! Yesterday spent all my energy and left me overly tired. My Wednesdays are such a cluster with work starting at 6:30 am, then going to my niece’s to babysit her little boy in the afternoon and Bible Study in the evening. It’s really too much. But, I don’t want to miss any of it because change is on the way.
Next week, we move our trailer, my tiny home, to the mountains of Tennessee. It’s been a long time coming but the day is almost here. Am I ready?
Change, even if it’s a good change, is stressful.
It necessitates leaving the past and moving on to something new. There’s comfort in sameness, in the old routines, and in the familiar places.
Indiana is my familiar place. I was born and raised here in the flatlands amongst the vast corn and soybean fields. For Hoosiers, the Indy 500 isn’t just a race but a month-long celebration during the month of May. We experience the Indiana State Fair as a rite of passage for our rural 4-H youth. People not from this mid-western state won’t understand the nostalgia attached to my homeland. These treasured memories will always be a part of who I am: a Hoosier at heart.
Nevertheless, the mountains and twin grandchildren yet to be born are calling to me. This means a change from working as a doctor on a regular schedule divided into fifteen-minute increments to “PRN.” If you’re not in the medical field, you may not know this acronym. PRN is short for the Latin term “pro re nata” which means “as the situation demands” or simply “as needed.”
In other words, I am transitioning out of regular medical practice to only working to fill in as needed. I will return to Indiana to cover for other doctors when they’re on vacation. This will give me the opportunity to visit with family and friends still living here. For a while, I’ll keep myself in both places, Indiana and Tennesse, until I’m ready to fully retire from medicine.
Friends have asked me, “Are you planning to write more?” Absolutely! That is my dream. However, making the changes necessary to actualize that dream are scary.
In order to the grasp the new, you must be willing to leave the old behind.
Like the caterpillar must break out of its chrysalis to enable its new wings to unfurl, so must we throw off things that hold us down in order to fly. The process of change is often painful.
Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.
C S Lewis, author
The “letting go”- the decision to act- is the difficult part. Often my heart aches for the things of the past. Where did the body of my youth go? How did my children grow up so fast? These stages of my life are gone. I can’t live there anymore. Now is a time for courage to embrace the new, exciting stages yet to come.
Change is on the way. Yes, with the Lord’s help, I am ready for it!
The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do.
Amelia Earhart, aviator
