Change

I'm on the other side of the country now. I have a bunch of new things to learn about and get used to. I have been away from this podcast and for that I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I got away from the fun and eye-opening experiences that come with it. Sometime it takes something like a big move to get the lead out and just have fun again. If you have a had a major change in your like, I'd love to hear about it.

#POETRY #SUNBEARCITY #WRITINGCOMMUNITY

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Hi everybody, it's your boy Sunbear back with another installment of I'm Just a Dude. Been away for a little while and things have really changed for me. Guess that's just the way life works sometimes. One minute you're bored in your old neighborhood. Next minute you're on the other side of the country, trying to remember why you made the move in the first place. I recently picked up and moved cross country, and now basically everything around feels brand new and unfamiliar. New streets, new weather, new faces, even the air smells different out here. It's strange how a person can spend years building a life somewhere only to fill it all in a handful of boxes and watch it disappear in the rearview mirror. I've moved before, but those moves were small moves, just different parts of town or from one apartment to another. Back then, my whole life could fit in the backseat of a car, a bed, a dresser, maybe a lamp or two, and of course a boombox. You gotta have music. This piece is called change. Change it's all changing, not fast for I have been around for quite a spell. You see, this is my home. I've seen neighborhood kids grow from toddlers to teens, and young hearts find trouble in the moonlight. The horizon has gone from sapling to steel. The corner store that helped an era now pokes holes in youthful faces. The once wide streets look comically small. The lamppost that signaled dinner time is no longer a familiar glow, rather a nauseating orange, and I feel I might get mugged. The quait pick and fences now look like a mangled spider after the cat got through with it. You there, away from my lawn. I'll see you tomorrow and the next and the next until something changes. This piece lends itself to the idea that change is inevitable. I think everyone has seen a neighborhood become slowly unfamiliar, and that's what I meant by the line the horizon has gone from sapling to steel. If you're gonna use contrast, make it big. I'll see you tomorrow and the next and the next. That line refers to the contradiction of irritation and detachment. So as not to harp on just a grumpy observation, I added the line get off my lawn to add a little humor as we all have it in us, to be grumpy with change. Finally, with the ending until something changes refers not only to the old neighborhood, but to the aging speaker as well. Overall it seems simple when it comes to what your memories have become. But is it that simple after all when you think of it as your memories taking on different meanings to different people? What it's done is flip from memory to reality. We all know it happens, but I think it becomes more evident the older we get. Times change, people change, infrastructure changes, and sometimes we need to change right along with it, whether we like to admit it or not. I think some of us tend to use humor to deal with it, and in dealing with it we achieve a stronger sense of self-awareness along the way. Nostalgia is nice and it is important, but if we dwell on it, we can become merely sentimental, and that's something only the individual can choose how they deal with it and to move forward. The older I get, the smaller my world really seems to become. Not smaller in a bad way, but more focused. I've gone from one little town and one limited range to another little town to another limited range, and by limited range I mean I really don't wander too far from my home anymore. I used to think life was all about stretching yourself out, going everywhere, seeing everything. Now I'm learning that sometimes life becomes less about distance and more about comfort. The comfort of a corner store, picket fences, and saplings lining a quaint neighborhood street has given away to cold corporate landscapes, hot black parking lots, and the dance of coffee house to go cups skittering across the parking lot. The contrast is something we will all have to learn to deal with at some point, whether we want to or not. It is said the only constant is change, and I guess that's right. Change moves through your life almost like the weather. Sometimes it rolls in and one doesn't even know it's happening, and another time it crashes through the front door like a storm you never saw coming. Leaving my home and hometown wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Maybe it's because deep down I knew the memories weren't tied to the buildings or street lights. They travel with you. They're packed away somewhere between posing for old photographs, inside jokes, and those silly little trinkets we just can't seem to get rid of. Now the moves seem heavier somehow. Not just because there's more stuff, but because there's more history attached to everything. Every object carries a little reminder of who you used to be. A plastic flower from one chapter of your life to a beat up old chair from another. You don't just move furniture, you move versions of yourself. Still, there's something beautiful about starting over. It reminds you that life keeps moving whether you're ready for it or not, and maybe that's just the point. Maybe we're all just out here trying to save small pieces of comfort while the overall scenery changes around us. Anyway, it feels good to be back. I've got more stories to tell, more thoughts bouncing around in the back of my head, and probably a few more lessons about life. Life's gonna teach me stuff whether I ask for it or not. I'm Thomas from I'm Just a Dude. Bye for now.