Accept All Changes

When you're in the "track changes" mode in Word, there's a final step where you have to click on "accept all changes." Once you've done that, you're good to go. I'm just putting it out there that if the Universe could offer an existential app called "accept all changes," it would be a major hit. Worth way more than the usual $4.99 of the very dandiest apps.

Some people crave change. When there hasn't been change in awhile, they get restless. They rearrange the furniture of their home or of their lives; they switch things up. It must occasionally be a high price to pay: that restlessness. But then again, they have this nifty flexibility that those of us who generally say "Not for me, thanks. I'm good" to change, don't.

Laura and I are in each other's lives for very good reason. It's so trite: Yin meets Yang. Yin rides the brakes and Yang is lead-footed on the gas pedal. We each keep a hand on the steering wheel, and you know what? Despite the circuitous scenic route we inevitably take, it works. I pump the brakes whenever she wants to steer towards getting a goat farm in Vermont. "Say the word, P! Just say the word and we can do it!"

But Laura's foot is on the gas pedal, and instead of heading to the goat farm, she accelerates toward a job in New York. Of course she does; she needs to. I want her to. But the change is hard.

My separation anxiety is showing up in strange ways. For years, Laura has harped on the advantages of a good, warm, sleeveless vest in our chilly house in the winter. "Keeps your core warm!' she says. Core schmore. My arms are cold. Not for me, thanks. I'm good. Puffy vests have always seemed like those sleeveless turtlenecks. Make up your mind already. You don't get to be winterwear and summerwear. But in the face of our impending lifestyle change, suddenly I had to have a vest. I wear it all the time now.  I know this weird change of clothes and heart came from separation anxiety. My new vest is keeping some kind of core of me warm.

Okay, everyone gets to change their mind about something like a vest. Stranger is my new fondness for goat cheese. All my life, goat cheese has been repellent to me. My beloved brother Lee had two goats when we were young. Their names were Nova and Capricia, and they were mother and daughter, as I recall. Lee built stalls for them in the barn, and fed them and routinely cleaned up the Milk Duds they dropped everywhere. Sometimes I would walk to the barn with him in the dark of night to keep him company. Do you know what goat stalls smell like? Go to Whole Foods, back in the cheese section, over there to the left. Open up that little roll of a package, and you can bring Nova and Capricia back to life. 


Laura has always had to double wrap the goat cheese she insists on buying. If I smell it in the fridge, I have a flashback to the poopy stalls of yore. But suddenly, as I anticipate Laura's being away 4 or 5 nights a week, I'm liking the goat cheese. You just have to believe me; I know it's related. 


We are having more long talks than ever, which, were you to be a fly on the wall, would astound you. The flies on our walls know that Laura and I talk all the time. That's all we do; we walk and talk. Sometimes I think the only reason I have a counseling practice is to engage in deep talk because Laura has other things to do. 


I've worried about feeling left out. I hardly, hardly ever feel unhappy about being left out. Leave me out of most social gatherings, I beg of you. But the people at her new school seem smart, kind, and funny. They'll probably engage in witty banter. Waah, I want witty banter, I wail to myself. I'll just be this phantom spouse who lives in Connecticut (snort). Connecticut!? Might as well be a goat farm in Vermont, to New Yorkers.


Yesterday I picked a fight with Laura about my feeling left out of the action. It's not her fault, but sometimes it's hard. There are announcements and press releases and cocktail parties being scheduled in her honor. I am doing things like advising whether the invitations should include her middle initial or not. But our fights are so gentle; neither wants to hurt the other, and we are excruciatingly careful of fighting fairly. I open with this: "I think I am not doing a great job of expressing my needs." Pow! What a punch.


Poor Laura is trying to help me work through this separation anxiety. On today's walk, she asked me to think big about my life. To someone who doesn't crave change, that's a funny question. "What's your biggest, biggest fantasy for your life, P?" she asks, eyes wide with enthusiasm. I think hard, and then say, "To see clients only two days a week, and to write the rest of the time." A beat, and then, incredulous, she asks, "That's your biggest fantasy?" To her, I think it was like she had offered the best meal of all time, and I had ordered oatmeal, with walnuts, blueberries, and maybe a dab of butter (actually sounds pretty good, doesn't it?).


Next time she asks--which she will, because Yang likes questions like these--I will tell her the deeper truth. My biggest, biggest fantasy is to be able to gracefully accept all changes.