Change

Change sucks. But as everyone always says: it's the only real constant we have in life so we've gotta get used to it. For most of my life I tried to resist change in any and all situations. I hate cutting my hair, I always wear the same nail polish colors, and moving into a new house was a nightmare. However, I like to think I've gotten better at dealing with change as time has gone on, but I still have my moments, and I do thoroughly enjoy having a good routine that I thoroughly don't enjoy drifting from.

As you can imagine when the Eagle Tavern was sold my dad lost his job and I quit I was not the happiest person in the world. Very far from it. It was a gigantic change, my dad hadn't worked anywhere else in 35 years and I had been planning on working there until graduating. Neither of us had any idea what we were going to do or where we were going to work. I still wanted to work for my dad at the time because I had a very difficult availability/schedule, so getting hired somewhere else was hard. It took a while, but he found another job, and told me I would be able to work there as well.

I was p e t r i f i e d. I had known the Tavern and every person inside of it for my whole life, or close to it. I was comfortable there and all I wanted was that back. The idea of starting a new job where I didn't know a single soul was intimidating as shit. I was also anxious because I was going in as "the new boss' daughter" and was aware that people probably wouldn't take well to that. When I was the "boss' daughter" at the tavern it was okay because I had already known everyone there long before I ever worked there so they knew there was no special treatment or anything of that sort. But these people didn't know me or my dad and I was uncomfortable as anything.

For the first month or so that I worked at this new job I absolutely hated it. I remember having a panic attack in my car driving to work from school. It was just such a new environment and a sort of tense one because everyone there was going through the changes of new management. I felt like throwing me into the mix wasn't necessarily helping relieve any of the tension, but making it worse.

I will admit that I was sort of hurting myself by not being very receptive to the change. I wouldn't say I was really trying to like the new job, I would constantly complain to my mom and roommates about how I just wanted my job at the Tavern back and that this new job was no good. The main reasoning behind me saying that was missing my old coworkers, I loved them all so much. It wasn't the job or the building at the Tavern that I really loved, it was the people I was working with. They were like family to me and I missed that greatly, I still do.

Being thrown into a completely new environment with completely new people was tough. I'm a generally quiet person, especially when in new environments and it just wasn't clicking for me. I had no clue what to do.

If you had told me back then that I would be sitting here five months later in Australia missing my job and my coworkers I would have laughed in your face. But, I am. I was so stubborn and close minded about hating my new job for so long; but after letting those feelings go and actually working there for a while and getting to know the people there, I absolutely adore it.

Some of the best human beings in the world work there and I love them so much. Everyone is so kind and funny, and although it is a very different family from my Tavern one, it is still a family nonetheless. I never ever thought that I would love everyone there so much, and that feeling stemmed from the idea that I thought they were all just going to hate me. As it turns out, they don't hate me (or if they do then they have done a fantastic job hiding it so props to them I guess). It genuinely is one of the things I miss most about being at home, I actually enjoyed going to work everyday and not being able to go to work with some of my favorite people is hard.

What I've come to learn from this is that change still does suck, but you just have to trust and give it time. I like to think that you are always right where you need to be, even if it doesn't always seem like it at the time. If my dad had never lost his job and gotten this new one I would have never met all of these wonderful people, and I am so grateful for that.

Everything in life takes time to work itself out, and the journey to get where you're supposed to be is not supposed to be easy. Sometimes you have to be put in uncomfortable, new, scary situations to learn things about yourself and those around you. It would be pretty damn boring to just be content in life all the time, things have to suck sometimes, but that's okay.

To all of my coworker friends at home: I miss you tons and tons, and if I could've brought all of you to Australia with me I would've. Thanks for not hating me and making work so much fun even when it's crashing and burning, it really does mean a lot to me and I love you all. Hope you all have fun with trivia night this week, sorry I'm not there to suffer with you guys. Also, thanks for taking care of Chip and making sure he eats healthy meals everyday, I'm glad someone is keeping an eye on him while I'm gone. Much love from Oz and see you soon.