How much change can you absorb?

How much change can you absorb?

As I sit aboard the Intel jet, flying between Hillsboro, Oregon and San Jose, California, I’m pondering my capacity for change.

Next Monday marks ten years since I first became a mother.  Helen was born on a Wednesday morning at 1:35 am.  She was forced into the world a week over due and has loved sleeping in ever since.  Those first four months with her were a blur.  Not only did I have to adjust to motherhood, but then the whole family adjusted to my husband starting a three-and-a-half year journey of law school at night.  Our lives shifted and have never been the same.

Though we saw a mountain of change over the past ten years, including living in Washington, D.C. for a few months, Teddy’s diagnosis, arrival, and surgeries, Matt’s graduation and shift to law, Alice and Henry arriving too, the past four months have tipped the scales as the most amount of change in the shortest amount of time.

Sure, the move 14 years ago from Wisconsin to Washington was a longer move than the recent one from Washington to Oregon, but it was only my husband and I back then.  Now we have four kids, my mother-in-law (a godsend!), two cats and a dog.  We’ve got stuff and friends and business relationships, and more stuff and even more stuff.  It’s all changed.  We donated our old cars and got new ones. We’ve got a new house. We’ve got new schools, new doctors and new dentists, and new opportunities.

I’m not recommending that everyone quit their jobs and move to another state, but I do know that doing that has taught me that I have an even higher threshold for change than I knew I had. Looking back on the past several months, I’m beyond thankful that I let myself jump into this change and that my family joyfully jumped with me.

Be ready for your opportunity to test your capacity for change.  Be the opportunity big or small, take it.  I bet you’ll be glad you did.  Why not try?