The Good Part Comes Later

You know that feeling when you put on a coat you haven’t worn in a while and find $22 in the pocket? It was already yours. You put it there. You probably forgot about it completely. But still. $22 dollars you weren’t expecting feels wildly better than $22 you knew you had.

Same with getting into bed with fresh sheets after you showered. Nothing major. Just way more satisfying than it should be.

I think change can be like that too.

We think the good part is going to be the big moment. Finally making the decision. Having the conversation. Starting something. Ending something. Finally getting our shit together in whatever area we’ve decided we need to get our shit together.

And sometimes that does feel good.

But I think the better part is later.

It’s realizing something happened that normally would have ruined your whole day and somehow it only ruined twenty minutes of it. Or somebody does the exact thing they always do and you don’t immediately become the version of yourself you always become around them.

It almost happens quietly.

It’s 6:14pm and you’re standing in your kitchen and realize, Oh. I am different.

You probably knew what you needed to do for a long time before you actually did anything differently. This is the part I think we’re way too hard on ourselves about. Because most of the time, you freaking know. You know you need to have the conversation. You know you keep saying yes when you want to say no. You know you’re exhausted because you keep doing everything yourself. You know you need to make the appointment. You know you’re avoiding something. You know the way you’re doing this isn’t working anymore.

And then we get pissed at ourselves because knowing should apparently mean we immediately become a person who does something about it.

Except that’s not really how people work.

There’s usually a reason you keep doing the thing you swear you don’t want to keep doing. And I don’t mean some huge, dramatic reason you need to spend the next ten years uncovering.

Sometimes you’re just really used to being the one who handles it. Sometimes disappointing somebody makes you so uncomfortable that you’d rather inconvenience yourself. Sometimes you say you don’t care and you absolutely care. Sometimes asking for help feels harder than being overwhelmed. Sometimes you’re waiting to feel completely sure about something that you’re probably never going to feel completely sure about.

And sometimes you’ve done something the same way for so long that you don’t even realize it’s a choice anymore.

That’s the stuff I notice. Especially when the same thing starts showing up in places that seem completely unrelated.

You’re annoyed nobody helps you, but you also never ask anyone to help you. You’re waiting for someone to make more effort in a relationship while also waiting for work to calm down before you do the thing you’ve wanted to do for six months. You say you want more time for yourself, but somehow your time is the first thing you give away every single time somebody needs something.

It can feel like you have twelve different things to figure out.

Sometimes it’s one pattern wearing twelve different outfits.

And once you see it, you start catching it. Not every time. God, no.Sometimes you notice it while you’re doing it and still do it anyway. Sometimes you realize three hours later. Sometimes your friend points it out and you’re immediately annoyed because she’s right. But eventually there’s a tiny space between what normally happens and what you normally do.

And that little space matters.

You ask for help before you’re furious that nobody offered. You say no and don’t spend the next four hours writing a closing argument in your head about why you were allowed to say it. You send the email. You stop waiting for someone else to change first. You let something be disappointing without turning it into evidence that your entire life is a disaster.

None of this feels particularly impressive while it’s happening.

There are no balloons. Nobody is standing in your kitchen congratulating you because something that used to take you out for three days took you out for twenty minutes.

This is one of those Wision moments for me. The win and the vision meeting each other in real life. Something you can actually see and feel that reminds you, oh shit. Look at me.

Because that’s the stuff I want to collect. Not just where I’m going, but the little pieces of proof that I’m already becoming her.

And eventually all those tiny things start adding up to something that feels a lot bigger.

I don’t think the best part is always the moment you decide to change something. I think sometimes it comes much later, when life hands you something familiar and you realize you’re not meeting it the same way anymore.

It’s the $22 in the coat pocket.

It was yours the whole time.

You just forgot it was there.