What if I'm not ready to turn the page?

One of the strangest things I've had to learn while living in London is just how constant change is.

After two and a half years of finding my feet, building a community, and making a home here, everything is changing again. My housemates are moving out. My closest friends are moving back to Australia. My job doesn't have the funding to keep me on. On Friday, I'll be saying goodbye to my colleagues. Next week, I'll be saying goodbye to my best friends. In six months, I might have to say goodbye to London. 

Suddenly, everything I've built feels like it's coming undone. It's unravelling. And I find myself in a bundle of anxiety and apprehension, wondering how I'm going to find my feet all over again.

The saying goes that the only constant in life is change. I've always told myself that change is good for you, but it's much easier to believe that when you're not the one being asked to let go. I used to think life was made up of chapters. But now I'm starting to think those chapters are entire novels, each with chapters of their own, and life itself is a book series on a giant, dusty bookshelf.

But what if I don't want this book to end? What if I'm not ready to turn the page?

I always think back to my time in Horrocks. The first four months I lived there were some of the happiest I've ever experienced. Everything was new. I loved the people, the routine, the simplicity of that season of life.

But then things changed.

Sometimes I think we're meant to leave things while they're still good. If we cling on too tightly, trying to hold onto something exactly as it is, it slowly becomes something different. We spend so much energy trying to stop it from ending that we miss the beauty of what it was in the first place.

Maybe part of loving a season of life is knowing when it's time to let it become a memory.

Coping with change is so much easier said than done. I'm certainly no expert. But instead of trying to convince myself not to be anxious, I'm trying to remind myself of the things I know to be true. I've started over before. I've walked into places where I knew no one and somehow built friendships that now feel like family. I've made homes out of unfamiliar places. I've survived every version of change that's come before this one, even when I couldn't imagine how I would at the time.

For me, the hardest part about change isn't necessarily adapting to the new. I've done that before, and I know I can do it again. The hardest part is knowing that life as it is right now will never be the same again. That's the bit that scares me.

How does one cope with all the things they love… changing?

Sometimes I like to picture all the books that make up my life lined up neatly on a shelf, each one tied together with a ribbon. Every friendship, every home, every version of me has its own story. Sitting beside them is a stack of blank books, waiting to be written (I love a good analogy). 

I look back and realise that if things had never changed, if I'd never left home, if I'd never moved to London, every single person I love here would still be a stranger. When I arrived in London, I was jobless and friendless. It's almost impossible to imagine now that the people who have become my family here were once complete strangers passing me on the street. I suppose that's what I'm trying to hold onto.

Change is frightening because it asks us to let go of something we love before we know what's coming next. We grieve a version of life that's still here, even while it's slowly slipping away. But every chapter I've ever been grateful for began with an ending.

So yes, I'm scared. I'm sad that this chapter is coming to a close. I'm going to miss the people, the routines, and the life I've built here more than I can put into words. But I know I'm also incredibly lucky. Lucky that I've built a life that's this hard to leave. Lucky that I've found people worth missing. Lucky that this chapter was beautiful enough to make turning the page feel so difficult.

And when I have to reach for my next blank book, I’ll remind myself that every chapter I’ve loved started with an empty page.

A x