As it is

People say change is always good. I’m not so sure about that. I’ve always been, shall we say, afraid of change, afraid of whatever new and unfamiliar things it would bring and all that would disappear, be pushed aside and replaced by them. I’ve always preferred the law of inertia, keeping things as they already are, maintaining the status quo, and not fixing anything if nothing is broken anyway. But change is something you simply can’t oppose, can you? It’s intricately woven into everything we are, everything we do, everything we wear, say, hear, eat, smell, and feel, something we cannot remove without disrupting the peace and order of this great big universe. It’s something beyond our control, like the forces of nature that constantly remind us there are some things in this life and this world we have no other choice but to wholeheartedly accept. So we’re forced to embrace change, whether we like it or not, like an old long lost relative you don’t really remember or recognize but hug anyway just to avoid hurting any feelings.

Lately a lot of changes have been taking place where I work, and I can say not all of them are good. Not even most of them. Most of the people I’ve known and worked with in the last few months have either been terminated or resigned just before they were terminated, leaving me with four other employees to work with on a newly imposed graveyard shift. Now, working with only four other people in a call center that supposedly seats around fifty after a massive retrenchment is not a challenge to me, as being antisocial and reclusive is a phase that comes to me naturally every now and then. But reversing my circadian rhythm and working under harsh conditions at night when all the world sleeps in peace isn’t as easy as turning back the hands of time on an old watch. Believe me, I’ve tried it before and I almost killed myself doing it, chopping off at least a decade from my already short lifespan. I’m not sure whether I can do it again, whether I’m willing to take on this change and leave home for work in the darkness of the night, when everyone else is wrapping up their day with a nice warm supper on the dinner table with their family. Once again, another dilemma to resolve. If it were up to me, I’d take on this like it were nothing. But my body disagrees. Every fiber of my corporeal being, from my big, fatty brain down to the very minute cells that shape the entirety of me, tells me something is amiss whenever I try to disregard my usual concepts of time and space and stay up all night working in front of a computer, talking endlessly while the air conditioner blows frigid wisps of air all around me. By the time my shift ends I feel like a frozen solid piece of meat, immobile and cold. It has been days since my first graveyard shift in months and still my joints have not forgiven me despite the rest I’ve taken.

Last night, just before falling asleep, when all conscious efforts at contemplation were slowly swallowed by my surrender to exhaustion and slumber, a sudden thought raced across my mind like a rabbit sprinting across a meadow. Life is under a no return, no exchange policy. Even if it’s not exactly what you want, you can’t just come up to God’s customer service lane, reason out it has a factory defect, give it back and demand for a refund or a decent replacement. What you get is made especially for you, something uniquely your own and different from everyone else’s, customized to fit your needs and your personality. It is exactly what you need, no more, no less. Even if it doesn’t exactly fit your taste or style. It’s more of a present than a product you purchased, and therefore even if you don’t like it, you get to keep it and have to be thankful for it. You didn’t shop around and pay for it in the first place. It was just given to you, as it is. And you don’t need to worry either because you’re not stuck with it forever, anyway. When the time is right and you’ve already learned to appreciate it and had your share of fun with it, God will take it back and put it away for good in some stockroom. So enjoy it while it lasts. It won’t be that long.

I’m learning to take life just as it is, as it comes. You can’t force or bend it into becoming something perfect. When life gives you lemons, no matter how sour they may be, you have to make lemonade out of them. Otherwise you’ll just have to throw them away and waste the opportunity, because lemons will always be lemons, and lemon seeds will eventually grow into even more lemon trees that will bear fruit to even more lemons to make lemonade out of, no matter how much you hope and pray and experiment with genetics to turn them into sweet apples. There is no point to resisting change, as it is the only thing that remains constant all throughout. Our lives change whenever they are supposed to, and there is nothing we can do about it but accept the changes and live whatever that remains of our lives with these changes. I’ve realized that no matter how much you complain to God and call His 24 hour customer service hotline to tell Him how badly screwed up your life is, He won’t be sending you another one to replace it. You’ll have to make do with what you have and make the most out of it, because as far as He’s concerned, it’s all you could ever really need and want. I guess the slogan the customer is always right does not apply either.