But I know a change is gonna come.....

The other day in the car I told Lucia that I thought it was time for her to have a desk in her room. Of course, kindergarten over-achiever that she is, Lucia giggled with excitement at the prospect. We talked about a trip to Ikea, desk accessories, colors, knobs. Then I suggested we move her bed to the other wall. I ruminated about maybe even getting a bigger bed, maybe a loft so her desk could fit in her tiny room better. As I rambled on, I noticed that my partner in excitement was stone silent. "What's up Lu?", I asked through the rear-view mirror. "Mommy." Lucia said authoritatively, "If we move my bed we're going to have to move my bookshelf. Then we'll have to move my dresser and my hamper and my bead box. And, Mommy, you know I'm not a fan of big changes." And that was that.

Two days later, my partner Nancy gifted me a new coffee maker, a nice one, not like the schlock I have from Target. This Dutch beauty brews hot and fast and strong. Plus, the thermal pot keeps coffee hot for HOURS! For a coffee junkie like me, this is the perfect gift. Perfect.

From my living room couch, I could see the exquisite machine sitting on my kitchen counter. Semi-catatonic, I stared at the coffee maker, quietly entering a not-so-mild state of panic. The pot on the new machine is smaller. What if I need to serve coffee to drop-by visitors and there isn't enough? The part that holds the water is glass and maybe it will get dirty. What if my coffee doesn't taste the same? What if it tastes BETTER?

Turns out Lucia isn't the only one who balks at change.....

Change is hard. But why? My life could only be improved by the presence of this fabulous coffee maker. Lucia's room would be fantastically more fantastic with more space and a cool-kid loft bed. But we still opt for the familiar. The known, finding comfort in the well-worn items we've each shaped over time. I'm not proud of this. I fancy myself an outlier, a risk taker. How could such a thing as a coffee maker throw me off guard? I just jumped into a 46 degree lake!

Seeing the response that Lucia had to her theoretical room shuffle and then my reaction to my divine new coffee machine two days later gave me pause. Am I hard wired like this? Is she? (Poor thing). And, if we are, how do we deal with this aversion to change? Here's what I think. We wait. Once we get the information that change is afoot, we sit with that knowledge and wait to make a move. It's a little bit like Savasana. We want to be immediately calm and okay in our corpse pose, but that doesn't usually happen. We have to experience the friction, the struggle, the confusion that almost always comes before any clarity or calm.

I'm happy to report that I'm out of my panic mode about the new coffee maker. Today I'm in the excitement zone. I want to bake cakes so I can serve my new Dutch coffee to everyone I know in my Nana's perfect white German-made china cups. As for Lucia, she's still stewing. I'm not talking to her about the new desk or room re-arrangement. I'm following her lead, letting her soak up the idea in her own time. Who knows where she'll end up, but I predict that within a week, she'll be asking for that loft-bed from Ikea.