Adapting

I have been thinking the last couple weeks of how things have changed in a year. How I have had to change and yet how much I have tried to stay the same. I know I am not the same. Sometimes I feel like I am reverting to the person I was before Jim and sometimes I feel like I have grown into this whole new person and yet stayed the same. I know that is a contradiction, but it works for me. It's more about changing what is necessary and what must be done than changing the essence of me.

'Adapting' was used today by a friend. Adapting, yes - good way to put it. Some change, for sure, but more adapting. I have spent a good amount of time mulling over what I thought were changes but really were not - it's like as a couple, Jim and I had dominant characteristics that evolved into roles in our years together. We played off of each other. There were other characteristics that came out more when we were apart from each other, at work, or with friends we may have been slightly different. I think that it is something that happens in most relationships.

The adapting in the last year has been from the need to do things that there just wasn't anyone else there to do for me. I stated somewhere in this blog way earlier that some of the pain is that where I used to have someone to cover my back, that isn't there anymore. I am doing that. I am learning and adapting to the need.

In six more months there may be a new viewpoint that I have. Six months ago, I know I wouldn't have thought I could be this calm in typing all this out.