By Hannah Criss

Change comes gradually at least that’s what you’re taught or what you think or experience growing up.

The slow changing of the seasons.

Or the way you slowly grow till you can barely remember the days when you couldn’t see above the kitchen counter.

Or the new wrinkles you begin to notice on your once young families faces.

But not all change is so forgiving, not all change can give you warning like the slow rise in temperatures alerting us to a much bigger change coming.

Some change is sudden like the rain pouring on a supposedly sunny day.

Some change comes like a lightning strike leaving you blinded for a moment by the white filling your room.

For some, change is the announcement of a move across the world.

For some, change is a divorce so sudden you’re packing your bags that night.

For some, change is a death that shakes the foundations of your moral compass and your soul.

For some, change is such a unique experience you can’t describe what changed to your friends, because maybe you changed.

Everyone experiences change, change is the foundation of our lives, change is the difference between Monday and Tuesday, change is what makes you unique, change is why you cry and why you rejoice. 

Some changes are painful and sharp like a stab wound.

Some changes are painful in the way they leave a dull ache or a reminder like a blister every time you take a step. 

Some changes are beautiful like the shift of the sun during dusk as the stars peak over the horizon. 

But for all, change is scary.

Change means leaving behind old things and letting in the new, the unique, the horrifying. 

And a lot of times that means a new you, with new emotions, new experiences, and sometimes even a new personality that leaves you feeling so different it’s almost impossible to recall your past selves thoughts.

Some may look back sadly and wonder why you changed because after all we grow attached to people who stick around including ourselves.

But it’s natural like the adaptation of animals you too will change like the shift from fish to reptile you too must grow and take the risk of evolving for something better.

Not every year will you be the same as you’re shifted by change, and the new you may make mistakes but those mistakes are what made you and what will form and shape another new yous choices in the future.

You can’t stop the shifting in your soul or the new emotions and experiences controlling your mind.

But you can control how you let it in.

Learn to accept all change because even if you don’t, it’ll happen anyway. Open your arms to change and rejoice in its beauty and the new chances and perspective it gives you.