Change

It was December of 2008. I had just gotten a new position at Large Corporate Company, I had just taken on a second job as a server, it was the holidays, it was The Seattle Ice Storm That Ousted Greg Nickels, I was driving back and forth a lot between Tacoma and Seattle, and on one of those trips...

...BOOM. My sleek black Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, the only new car I've ever owned, and the FIRST car I've ever owned, slipped on a patch of ice and died.

It wasn't a problem at that moment--Large Corporate Company was on winter holidays and I didn't need to drive anywhere. But January of 2009 would come, and with it would come a regular 7:30-4 business schedule...in my new position, 30 miles away from my house. Had the crash happened in my old job which was in South Seattle, I could have...worked from home. Taken the bus. Hitchhiked. ANYTHING. Now I had a new job, 30 miles away, that I had to be physically at EVERY SINGLE DAY, and I had a second new job that I had to leave the FIRST new job early for, some days, and work longer hours, other days. And suddenly I had no car. I had no way to drive the 30 miles to work OR leave early to make my second job OR work the longer hours on the days I didn't have to work both jobs AND I WAS TOAST. Should I...buy another car, used? Buy a new car? Quit my second job?

I called my mother, always an ever-present help in times of trouble. "...and so how is it possible that I got hired for two new jobs and crashed my car all in the SAME THREE WEEKS?" I ended, frustrated.

And then the clouds parted and the heavens opened and she gave me this excellent piece of advice: "Miss Dear, often when you change one thing, dozens of other little things will be affected, and you end up with a lot more change than you bargained for."

"Really? Why?"

"When your father and I decided to leave Chicago and move to Kansas City with you, he took the new job...and then, suddenly, several things happened to us all at once. We both got some traffic citations. Other unusual things happened. I remember it well. He--we--didn't take the new job SOLELY to change things up--we wanted to leave Chicago and the new job in Kansas City looked promising. But that change, somehow, affected a number of other things in our lives. Changing energies? Changing wants and desires that are somehow communicated to the universe? Who knows. It happened to us, and I'm not surprised it happened to you."

So true. You're going along in a groove, living your life the same way every day, and pretty darn content in its ways, and all of a sudden you explore some interesting side path and WHOA, hold the phone, your apartment goes to condos and some idiot runs into your car and your favorite clothing store closes up shop, all in the same week. You make some realization about your job. You decide to delete your Facebook account. WHATEVER. The point is, pursuing an interesting side path--for the side path's sake--takes us off the main path we were on and often, we can't get on it again.

Hypothetically speaking, of course. Be forewarned.