Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Change is good. Change is bad. And sometimes change is just change. Why do they change things when they seem to be working perfectly well? For example, Craigslist. You used to be able to access different neighborhoods easily if by chance you were looking at real estate. Now they have changed the format and it switches randomly when you least expect it. You might be looking for “apartments to rent” in Napa and then switch to “rooms to share” and it takes you to Mill Valley or some other neighborhood that you have no interest in. No rhyme or reason. It worked like a charm just days ago. It happened yesterday when I went to sign on to my Vanguard account. Totally new home page, where or where do I sign in? It worked beautifully last time I checked.  I don’t get it.

That is bad change.

I’m wondering about all of the changes I have been going through lately. With each resume I send off to cyberspace that gets rejected, with each house that gets rented to the person who saw it right before me, with each botched relationship, there is always that mantra playing; “it must not have been meant to be” – I don’t know if I believe that anymore. Maybe it is simply bad timing. Just missed opportunities. Or is it nothing more than bad decisions, miscalculated choices. If everything was “meant to be” would there really be so many tragic endings, so much sadness, so much regret? Maybe our “just meant to be’s” really are a matter of wrong time, wrong place, not enough effort, lazily assuming that things work out the way they are supposed to work out, too much letting things flow. Not meant to be is very much like religion or placing blame on our parents, or ex-spouses, or. . . another way to feel justified and alleviate any fear or responsibility for what happens to us in this lifetime. It is giving our power away. I wasn’t meant to get that job, that house, make that relationship work, it just wasn’t meant to be. It mitigates blame. It requires very little of us.

I know very little for sure at this point in time. But I have to believe that I have more control over what happens to me if I exert the energy, the focus and the intention required. Stay optimistic, believe in myself and trust that I have a little more input in regards to the outcome of my life (or lifestyle) than we sometimes want to believe. We have free-will. We just need to exercise it.

I do know for sure something that is meant to be. Chinese Food tonight. I’m going to go get some fried rice, eat it right out of the take-out carton with the red imperial pagoda against that waxy white background.

Fumble with my chop sticks (eventually get a fork) and watch TV – just like you see other people do on TV. Except the girl on TV (picture Sex in the City here) is usually living in a chic urban loft in Manhattan or Chelsea, traipsing around in an oversized white "boyfriend shirt," with her legs bronzed and freshly shaven. Not in some messy bedroom in Napa, in mismatched flannel pj bottoms and a torn oversized plaid flannel shirt, the room in disarray due to the half filled moving boxes, open suitcases and stacks of paperwork and paperbacks. Plus, my legs are looking like those "save the trees" girls in the movie, Without a Paddle. Really, it is that ridiculous! I know, not a pretty visual. But I can't find the razor in all this mess.

So for now I guess I will hold on to that "you are exactly where you are meant to be" mentality and go with it a little longer. It feels better. I won't question these decisions made over the past two months. But soon  I need to make smart choices, take a little more time with them, and know that perhaps if things don't work out the way I had hoped or planned, maybe I just didn't have the patience or put in the necessary effort, and I will take full responsibility and not blame it on the "Gods."