On the other hand...

I've always believed that change is a good thing. I never wanted to be in a job longer than two years. What a joke! I've been at the same company for over 10 years now. I've rationalized it by saying that 1) I've had at least 4 different job descriptions during this time and 2) it's actually been 3 different companies due to all the mergers and acquisitions... BUT... it's really still working at the same company, working with the same people, working in the same field with tiny reincarnations of my role that really don't amount to much in the scheme of things.

I was thinking a little more about the "You will move into a wonderful new home within a year" fortune. In some ways it wouldn't be such a bad thing to move to a new house in Boston. Moving away from Boston right now would be like running away from my problems to reinvent myself in a new town where no one knows me. That's incredibly appealing because it would be so easy to sweep all my troubles under the carpet, run like hell, and never look back.

It's infinitely more difficult to stand up to my problems, look them in the eye and fight them head on. There's nothing wrong with a change of scenery to inject some new possibilities into the mix, to put a different spin on things, and to get a breath of fresh air, but it doesn't have to come at the expense of losing the people I love and all the friends that I've made over the last 20 odd years of living in Boston.

I don't want my life to be turned upside down and inside out, but small points of change that aren't catastrophic could be a welcome impetus for personal growth. Getting stuck in a rut is a terrible thing. You don't realize you're in it until you're so deep that you can't see anything but the path trudging forward. You aren't aware that there could be some stairs off to the side of the rut (if you just bothered to look in that direction) that would lead you to being a better person. The kind of person that takes more notice of the people around them and gives assistance before it's asked, the sort of person that makes other people happy and listens with an open mind and an open heart. A person who leaves old resentments behind and works to forge new pathways to understanding those who are in pain and need to be tended. A person that actually does change when they want to change and who asks for help when they need it.

A person that someone else would want to love.