Changes and Traditions

Growing up's a funny thing, isn't it?  Everything you expected to happen doesn't, and all sorts of junk you never even thought about happening comes at you full force.

Reality doesn't ever meet your expectations, especially in your twenties.

Our holidays have changed as we've gotten older.  That's to be expected.  But it's really hard to be okay with it, quite honestly.

I've never been one who is okay with change.  I don't typically like it, but I'll lie and pretend I'm okay with change.  I mean, when I first started looking for houses, I had to stop and take a few months off just to wrap my head around the fact that buying a house is a BIG DEAL and I will never live with my parents again.   {Does that make me sound lame?  Probably, but whatever.}

Once I get used to the new change, I'm all for it, though.  Once I found my house and put in an offer, I was ALL IN.  I was pumped to move in and have a house of my own.

I had to move classrooms this past summer.  I dreaded it all summer, partly because I do hate moving, even if it is one room, but a large part was because I was moving from a room I spent six years in.  However, once my junk was moved, it was game time and I loved my new room.

It's a little harder with holidays, though.  Because my siblings and I are in such transitional stages in our lives, our holidays have changed each year for the past few years.  We had our Christmas routine down pat growing up.  Christmas Eve was filled with a ton of food, Christmas Eve services, and then opening one gift, which was always pajamas.  My sister and I would have a "slumber party" that came from when we were little.  Christmas morning came super early, even when we were teenagers.  We'd open up the rest of our presents, have the same breakfast we did every year (monkey bread and pigs in a blanket), and then pack up and head down to Savannah to have Christmas dinner with family there.  For the next couple of days, we'd spend time with my mom and dad's families.

I loved our routine and traditions.  But then we grew up and stopped traveling to Savannah.  My brother moved to Savannah.  My younger sister moved to Savannah, moved back home, and has recently gotten engaged.  I bought a house, five minutes from my parents, so it was no longer necessary to spend the night at my parents' home.  All of this adds up to holidays that are nothing like when we were growing up.

Right now, it's hard.  Right now, it makes me sad.  Right now, I'm having a hard time getting used to it.  And I know that makes me sound like a spoiled brat because I can't handle change.  And maybe I am a spoiled brat.  Lord knows my mom has told me that eighty million times.  Mostly she's joking, but probably not.

I know that we will settle into a new routine eventually.  Some traditions will be given up, and some new ones will be started.  And when I have kids of my own, we'll have new traditions.

But seriously, I think one of the hardest things about being in your twenties IS all the major changes.  Nothing is consistent.  Friends come and go more during this stage of life than any other, at least from what I've seen so far.  Jobs change, friends move and come back and move away again, grad school happens (or doesn't), apartment changes, house changes, weddings, babies, and so on.

It's A LOT.  A little too much too handle for this change-hating girl.  And when you start changing traditions that have been around for ten, fifteen, or TWENTY years, I just can't.

But I have to.  And I will.  But just give me some time, okay?