Thoughts on Reversal

I spin to face the other way, to see the greener view. To move, to change, to reinvent myself. I spin and you are there. I slow to see you more clearly, and you grab my hands to hold me still. For your sake, I stop.

I stare into your steadfast gaze and adopt your view of the world. I admire your worthy goals. I feel protected and safe in your stable grasp. I respect your thoughts and ideas. I want to make them my own. I want to see life through your eyes.

I fail. Too soon, my eyes wander, my head turns, my shoulders stiffen, and my arms tug at my hands. Despite my best intentions, I grow bored with the unchanging view. It does not suit anymore. I am not steady or stable. I thrive on change.

Ants in your pants, my mother always said. The mental reaction to inactivity feels the same, like an itching in my brain. The boredom swarms in like bugs, eating away at my mind. The only relief is change.

I don’t like my job anymore – I get a new one.

I don’t like where I live – I move.

I don’t want to be married anymore – I leave.

Flighty, my father always said. No stick-to-itiveness.

But when it’s time to change you’ve got to rearrange, as the Brady Bunch once told me.

To my parents and other loved ones, the reversal is sudden. Like a call at midnight that you know will only be bad, the news of my decision comes as a shock. But to me, it is after years of struggle, of fighting against the need to move, to spin away. I work hard to relax into the life I am leading, to find happiness in my current reality. I do want security and stability, as much as anyone. But as I change and grow and learn, my idea of what that stability should look like changes too. What made me happy yesterday will not necessarily make me happy today.

You cling to my hands, trying so hard to keep my attention. I do not change out of spite or cruelty. I do not want to hurt you. This is who I am. I change. To stop, to settle, and to stay still is to die.

Eventually I wrench my hands from your grasp and I spin away.

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Daily Prompt: 180 Degrees – Tell us about a time you did a 180 — changed your views on something, reversed a decision, or acted in a way you ordinarily don’t.