Night Changes

Today I stared at my computer screen and slowly tears began to well up in my eyes. I willed them back, refusing to cry. "This is good. I'm making the right choice," I told myself. But whatever I told myself, it was still hard to type those words "Courtney's last day will be August 5, 2016."

This place, this world, has become so much a part of me. Even when it was hard to come to work because I never knew what I would find, I loved the work I do. I had begun to define myself by my role at the shelter, and my coworkers feel like my extended family.

But of course that couldn't last forever; nothing wonderful ever does. And moving to St. Louis to get my MSW at my dream school is the best choice I could have ever possibly made, as difficult as it is to go through with it at times. I don't do change well, and I've had so many changes to make in the past few months: choosing to go back to school and everything that comes with that from finding an apartment and a roommate in a city I don't know, to scheduling classes, leaving my job, applying for student loans, and leaving the wonderful people here in Des Moines.

In my last blog post so many months ago, I wrote about the challenges I was having with change. And it was this big change of choosing to go back to school in a city six hours away where I know very few people that I was just beginning to wrestle with in a very personal way at that time. That paralyzing fear of this change has been something I've been living with for the past nine months. Not surprisingly, I found solace in the song that asked me "Does it ever drive you crazy/just how fast the night changes?" My answer has been yes, yes, yes. I'm terrified.

As I pushed those tears back this morning, I began to answer that question a little bit differently. I began to open up to the next lines of the song: "But there's nothing to be afraid of/even when the night changes/it will never change me and you." I know that soon I may not work at the shelter, but that doesn't mean that I can't still be involved in the homeless community. Even when I don't live in Des Moines, that doesn't mean I can't continue to connect with the support system here. Yes, things are changing and I can't stop them from doing so (though I just wish some things would slow down!), but that doesn't mean that everything will change. I know that no matter what, I have a huge cheering squad in Des Moines, rooting for me no matter what. I know that I have grown as a person by making this huge change and I will have worlds open up to me in the next year and a half that I can't even imagine now. And most of all, I know that I will always, always find inspiration in song lyrics.