Changes

Today I was thinking about how I have changed since I have moved to Seattle.  Not my personality and who I am like at the core, but just little things that I spend time doing that I didn't before or different types of people that I am around or other things.  These things are not good or bad.  I have not placed a value judgement on them.  I am not glad that I have changed in these ways and not sad.  As they are not things to be glad or sad about.  They just are.  But I was thinking about these things.  I've been here for about 4 1/2 months now and a lot of things are the same but a lot of things are different as well.  The seasons of life that we go through are super interesting.  For me, I knew things were going to change a lot.  I moved across the country and started a new job and didn't know a single person.  I was expected change and wanted change.  But sometimes you don't really expect things to change.  Like there is no big life change or thing that happens or even a clear point when things started changing.  One day you just realize that things change and you can't pinpoint when or why.  It's super interesting to think about.

One change that I have made and have been consciously trying to change since I moved here is to be more outgoing and, specifically, initiate friendships with people.  Because I want to be better at this, but also because I knew that I was going to need friends since I didn't know anybody.  I have always been SUPER shy.  Since I was a little kid.  I can remember in like kindergarten being terrified, terrified to talk to people.  Anyways, over the years I have gotten better at this, but I'm still pretty shy.  When I first meet people it is usually bad, but once I get to know them it gets better and I start to open up.  I thing I even start to open up quicker, it doesn't take me as long to feel comfortable.  I'm also fairly awkward when I first meet people, and in general life but in much different ways.  And I almost never initiate friendships.  I usually like to just let them happen, but then a lot of times they never do.  Anyways, for these reasons and more, I wanted to try to do this.  So recently I did this.  There's this volunteer at work who I thought was cool and it seemed like we could be friends.  So I initiated a friendship.  It took me a while to actually do it, and I stressed over it for a while.  But I did it.  It may have been a little awkward, but I don't think it was too bad.  And we're gonna hang out tomorrow I think.  So I'm gonna need to still work at being more outgoing so that when we do hang out I'm not shy but open up.  Cause how would anybody get to know me if I don't do that?  So we'll see how it goes.  Anyways, yeah, this change is different then what I was talking about above because this was something that I made a choice to do.  I moved to Seattle knowing that I would need to work on this and partly because I needed to work on this.  I didn't really NEED to make new friends in Pennsylvania, so I didn't because it was hard and awkward.  But here, I don't have much of a choice.  Because then I would be bored and lonely all the time.  So I'm working on it and I think it's going well.  Soon I'll be an expert at making friends and not being shy.