Change.

I just rearranged my living room.

This is a big deal because 1. Things are heavy and my roommate isn't home, 2. I started a little after midnight when I should have been sleeping, and 3. I HATE CHANGE.

I never understood the girls in college who rearranged their rooms a couple times a semester. Any time my roommate rearranged the room while I was gone during a break I cried a little inside as I put on what I hoped was a neutral face and said "Oh. You rearranged the room," listening to all the reasons it made the room better. I usually got used to it within a week, but preferred it to have stayed the same (I managed to be in the same room all four years, that's how much I love consistency).

So many things changed and fluctuated and made me feel "other" in my life that at least having the same possessions and having the furniture in the same place was something constant and familiar. When we moved when I was in Jr. High, my parents let us kids arrange the living room - it stayed pretty much the same for 7 years, as did my bedroom. (I still use the bedspread I started using when I was 12, brought with me from Ecuador).

I've lived here for less than a year and I have now changed things TWICE. The first time was out of necessity, things had to be shifted when I got a piano. The room is rectangular and I had the piano and the couch on the long sides, making the room very narrow. Today I moved the couch to under the window, making the room more square. And I like it.

Something changed and I like it.

Maybe it's the stability of living in one country for several years now, living in my own home for a nearly a year that allows me to enjoy change. Maybe it's the fulfillment that comes from loving your job and knowing you are valued and needed. Maybe it's from knowing I am exactly where God wants me right now. Maybe it's because things have been too steady, too safe, and I subconsciously need the change now. Or maybe the room arrangement was just awful before. Whatever the reason, changed happened and I was ok with it.

I think it is a sign that I am content. I am not holding on to things being exactly as they are, I am not fearful of the future or longing for the past or clinging to this scrap of reality. I am content enough to have something change and it not greatly shake my reality.

I am not fully in favor of change. I have not suddenly stopped liking things a specific way or being attached to familiar things (I will definitely cry inside when I trade out my car for something smaller). But I think it is a step. A step towards letting go of the need to cling to what I have, cling to the way things are, grasp on to anything for stability and consistency. My feet are planted and growing roots deep enough to enjoy the changing of seasons around me.

I could easily cry when I think of how happy I am at this point in my life. I love feeling planted.

I am content.