What Is It About Change That’s So Addicting?

As the leaves are turning and the temps are dropping, you can notice an obvious excitement in the air. There’s just something about a new season and a new wardrobe that proves how much we love change. You forget how much you love the pool, the lake, and your favorite jean shorts when you get to experience the cool air, new boots and maybe even a darker hair color. Why do we strive for change? I personally never get sick of it.

I’ve spent the past week cleaning out closets and packing boxes to move to a new apartment just a few miles from where I live now. Although I love my current home, I’ve always been a bit of a gypsy soul. Since moving to Nashville a little over seven years ago, I have lived in five different parts of town. Come Monday, it will be six. I can’t quite figure out what it is about living somewhere new that has me packing boxes so often.

Nashville, you stole my heart. Every single part of you. Photo cred: Paige Colabordino Photography

I constantly wonder how anyone purchases a home and lives in the same place for so many years. Will I ever be able to settle down like that? I probably waste so much hard earned money paying rent, but moving to a new place gives me the feeling of a fresh start and a whole new beginning. It has me making New Year’s Resolutions when it’s not January 1st and discovering a whole new part of my city.

With big changes also come risks. But I really do believe that sometimes our lives have to be shaken up a little and rearranged to really figure out what we want and who we are. My last move was the biggest change I’d faced in awhile. I left my roommates who I’d been living with for several years. We didn’t fight. We love each other. We had fun. So why did I leave? I’ll never really know. It was probably that little feeling inside of me that I had been ignoring for so long. The feeling of needing a change.

I started giving into this feeling at nineteen years old when I moved across the country to Tempe, AZ without a job or any knowledge of what it would be like. I had never even been to the state of Arizona. Just like that, I packed up my stuff and drove thirty hours to a new city and started over. After moving even further from home to California, I eventually made my way back to Michigan and stayed there until the feeling came back and I couldn’t ignore it, yet again. That’s when I ended up in Nashville. The fact that I have lived in the same city for over seven years has me feeling like this is probably home now. The people and opportunities I’ve acquired since moving here have given me a solid reason not to leave. Yet I still crave change, so I move to different parts of the city.

At what point will I stop experiencing the feeling of needing a fresh start or a new beginning? At what point will I be content where I am and be able to truly settle down? I’ll never really know. Until that aching feeling goes away, I’ll keep making temporary changes like my hair color, my address, and my style. As those evolve over time, I’m still the same person on the inside. I still have the same faith in God and the same love for making women feel beautiful. I still have an addiction to coffee, wine and my mom’s homemade pumpkin pie. Those things will probably never change. But as I create a new home and discover a new part of my city next week, I find myself wondering if that aching feeling for change will eventually come creeping back again.

Maybe my next big change will be not changing at all. Only time will tell.