Change: The One Thing in Life You Can Depend On. And Coffee. That Too.

I moved this summer.

Can you believe it? It took over a year to sell the house, but it happened. Praise Baby Jesus. Funny thing about selling: they want you to pack up and leave. So the next stop on the real estate train was find a house to hop into and quick.

In a subdivision not too far away (the one I had had my eye on for the past two years), the model homes were coincidentally up for sale. This is luck, I say to myself. I love model homes. They always smell like something is baking. And folks smile a lot in model homes. Everyone in my house would surely smile and bake if I lived there.

It turns out they had one of the three models left for purchase. The one that’s interior was decorated in red and black. You might take a moment to read that sentence again. (I’ll wait). I kid you not.  But that’s a story for another blog. I promise.

So in the course of packing up my life to move into the red house, I saw a lot of it flash before my eyes, quite literally. It really hit home how much I’ve changed over the years from one phase of my life to another.  I thought on this as I threw out the paint by numbers kits by the thousand. At what point did I think I was artistic and why?

But that experience sent me off on a tangent because I realize I’m constantly changing – hopefully growing – but changing all the same. I ran into a friend from my high school/college days at a wedding recently and she casually referred to me as a country music fanatic. I looked at her questioningly. Because I don’t really listen to country music…ever.  But there had been a year or two of my life when I was obsessed with it and made a big show of it to anyone who would listen.

It makes me wonder what about myself today I will scoff at later in life. This is also the reason I don’t have any tattoos. I really don’t trust my current self not to piss off my future self. She’s intimidating and from what I’ve seen, judgmental.

So for now, I’ll just be the best me I can be. I may not like my highlights five years from now or the necklace I seem to want to wear all the time, but in the here and now, these things are me. They’re authentic.

But I like the evolution.  I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Recent Happenings:

•  I just returned home from Dallas last week, where I had the pleasure of participating in a book signing/reading at Barnes and Noble with fellow BSB authors Carsen Taite, Rachel Spangler, and Shelley Thrasher. (Photos on Facebook). The event took place pretty much in the children’s section. Thereby, I would like to apologize to the universe for using the word “hell” during my reading. I hope the little tykes aren’t scarred for life.
•  I saw the movie Moonrise Kingdom. If you’ve seen it, please tell me what you think as I cannot completely wrap my head around it.  My impressions: offbeat, arty, thematic, whimsical but often farfetched (intentionally).  I think I liked it. I’ll let you know when the dust settles.
•  My third novel, How Sweet It Is, was accepted for publication with Bold Strokes Books. I’m excited to finish it up.  Look for it in 2013!