Shit just got real.

People avoid change at all costs. It’s uncomfortable, it brings anxiety and the fear of the unknown drives people to run from it.

We are horribly set in our ways. We have routines that we follow every day to keep our minds in order. From making our morning coffee to taking the same route home everyday from work. We all do it. We think that it keeps us from going insane.

Unfortunately, when life is not going as we had hoped, it is that same safe routine that eventually leads us into the ruts of an unfulfilled life.

We all know the famous Albert Einstein quote:

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Most of us tend to be extremely stubborn about change and will do everything we can to avoid it.

We stay in relationships with expiration dates that never come. We stay in jobs that we loathe because it’s safe and a paycheck. We take shit from people in our lives because we want to avoid confrontation.

The very fortunate thing about change is that it happens no matter what. You can try to shut the door on it and put your entire body up against that door and push as hard as you can.

You can avoid it with alcohol, drugs, eating, shopping, gambling; whatever your poison may be, but regardless of your efforts, change is going to happen and you just gotta deal with it.

I am closing some chapters in my life now that were very poignant in making me who I am today.

Those parts of my life taught me about trust, honesty, hope, love and sadness. By closing those chapters, I have discovered loneliness for the first time since I was a child going through my parent’s divorce. It is a gut-wrenching, hollow feeling and the walls in my apartment can sometimes creep in around me.

I am slowly welcoming this change, of accepting the difference between being alone and being lonely. I have forced myself for years to try to block out sadness. But, it only perpetuates what will eventually come back to bite me in the ass when I least expect it.

For the past month, I have lived in it. I have soaked in every emotion and accepted them: extreme sadness, anger, disappointment, relief, loneliness and even slight bits of happiness. I have sat with each one of them and built a relationship with them. No more avoiding.

With that acceptance and learning to let go, little remnants of inner peace are starting to appear. And, change occurs.

Good things are starting to happen.

Remember my post, “I’m turning forty and I have a disease”? Turns out, with further testing, I do not have thyroid disease. That sudden weight gain? I probably just ate the shit out of my beloved bacon and thought that by training for triathlons, all the crap I was eating would just melt off.

The lethargy? Maybe I’ve just become lazy. Who knows? I’m just grateful that I no longer have a disease I never really had.

My house closed yesterday and the long struggle with a crazy mortgage, a short sale and a disgusting final sale price is over. Enter relief.

I am meeting new people that are quickly becoming important to me and will help shape and change my future self.

Change is scary. It is daunting and elusive and uncertain. But, it is also necessary and unavoidable.

You must let it in, let it happen. We need to constantly evolve or we suffer the emotional shit storm from the aftermath of denial.

For me personally, change is bringing growth and perspective and little by little, some inner peace.

Let it go, roll over it, bathe in it and I promise you, good things will happen.

As Snow Patrol beautifully puts it, This is your life, this is your time.