It takes some time.

Several years back I listened to an episode of "This American Life" themed "What do you call it?" The jist of the stories were trying to figure out what you call an event before it has an agreed upon name. The one story that really stuck in my mind was listening to Holocaust survivors talk about their experience's under the Nazi's and the lack of a coherent term or definition for what they went through. It wasn't the "Holocaust" and the full extent of the horror was not yet known. The survivors sounded still in a state of shock several years after the events and the interviewer seemed almost flippant and callous in his questions. Everything was still coalescing and being processed within the minds of the individual participants and the world as a whole.

It takes time to understand and gain perspective about most things, but especially about major events. Most of all it takes time to change things within our own life. There was a historic lighthouse on the east coast in danger of falling into the ocean because the shoreline had eroded to within 100 feet of the foundation. The community gathered together the funds and bought a parcel of land far enough away from the shore to ensure it wouldn't be endangered again by erosion. The difficulty was getting the lighthouse to the new piece of land. As they moving company prepped the lighthouse to be moved the single most perilous part of the journey was the first three feet. The lighthouse had to overcome its inertia in one piece. If they could get it moving those first three feet it would move just fine.

Lives are like that lighthouse. It takes a lot of prep time and work to overcome its current state to move to a new location or state of being. Once things get moving it'll be okay, but getting it started is the hard part. And I suppose that if it all falls part, that just speaks to an inherent instability. Even if life had stayed where it was the instability would have brought it down. A well built, resilient life can handle change, though not without stressing it.

I've talked a lot with my friends about moving and finding a new job. Almost three years of talking, and only now do I feel like I am finally at the point where I am going to do it. And somehow, I think I've got a lot of stuff built in and around my lighthouse that it'd probably be best to let the ocean claim it rather than carry it along for the ride.