Change

“If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.” – Gail Sheehy

Every December, four birch trees at the bottom of a street two blocks away, shed their leaves and bark, revealing smooth silvery trunks and naked limbs that the sun streams through. I love everything about those trees, but the best part is their blanket of orange, yellow and brown leaves that cover the ground below, bright and crunchy beneath my sneakers. Those leaves bring me back to the brisk autumn days in New York. 

A few days ago, I stopped to feel the smooth bark of one of the trees and snapped a picture of the sun streaming through. There’s a permanent, impermanence of being a tree, constant change and loss and rebirth. It made me think about the beginning of a new year and the human feelings around change and lists and resolutions.  

I feel a lot like a birch tree this time of year, my bark shedding and changing as another year passes and a new one begins. But unlike a birch tree that accepts its inevitable changes, I find myself resisting change. If I was a birch tree, I would hang on so tightly to all of that bark, like when I used to white knuckle the towel my puppy playfully yanked from me after a shower, covering up all my vulnerable spots. I would gather all of my leaves and try to put them back on my bare branches, afraid of being exposed and raw. 

My fear of change is tied to my fear of failure. What if it doesn’t work out? What if I can’t do the thing that I want to do? What if next year, I look at my list and realize I didn’t do what I said I was going to do?

I wonder what it would look like this year if Instead of placing unrealistic expectations on all of the things we need to do or have – the perfect body, the perfect home, the perfect marriage — if we simply accepted who we are and shed things that didn’t serve us anymore. 

What if like the bark of those birch trees, we simply stopped resisting and should-ing all over ourselves and just let it all go? What if we allowed ourselves to shed the old stories we continue to tell ourselves, the shame we feel and the anger and resentment that’s making us sick? What if we let go of the fear and simply said, What if it does all work out? What if we just accepted time and life and what is and let the rest go? 

Maybe it’s time to live more like a birch tree, accepting the change, soaking up the sun, allowing our leaves to fall to the ground and shedding that rough outside layer to reveal our smooth and vulnerable insides.

December 26, 2024