Changes

Do you smell that? Change is in the air. No, I'm not talking about the President's plans to take the country back into the hands of ALL people. I'm talking about change in my life. Not change forced on me by the decisions of others, but changes I choose for myself. I've been working towards this for the past two years, incorporating more change into my lifestyle, into my nightlife, into my interests, even branching out into new areas.
When I was younger, there was a lot of change going on in my world. We moved every few years, almost always to a smaller house, then to an apartment. These changes were always linked to my parents' finances. Each new neighborhood meant new schools as well, new people to know. I was pretty introverted as a kid, so these changes kept me close to family and enhanced my love of reading. I could always escape the world through my imagination, step into a new world not yet explored by me. In that respect, change was good. Change made me more conscious of the small size of my known world compared to the vast universe surrounding me.
My family's final move in 1969 was back to a house, back near the old neighborhood we first lived in when we had moved from Augusta to Savannah. I was reunited in middle school with some of the friends I'd made in elementary school, but they didn't live in my neighborhood, so I was still relegated to hanging out with my brothers and their friends. This was before the days of parents ferrying the kids to wherever, whenever. If we wanted to get together with our friends, we walked or rode our bikes to their houses. Period. I did eventually make a new friend with a girl whose dad was in the military, but I lost track of her a year later when her folks moved to Germany. So, I played cops and robbers, and pirates, and baseball. Oh, and I did a lot of babysitting, being one of the few girls in the area.
Finally, in high school, I was reunited with my best friend from grade school. What a very good change! We spent lots of time aways from home, riding our bikes all around, going to the science museum, exploring the surrounding neighborhoods. On Saturdays, we'd take the bus to the new Oglethorpe Mall for window shopping and Der Weinerschnitzel and Chick-Fil-A. Sometimes, we'd take the bus downtown and wander around the houses there, lunching at Tanner's or Krystal's or even The Pink House (if her dad was able to join us, so he could pay).
She was boy-crazy sooner than I was, probably because she only had the one brother, whereas I had three. Plus, I had grown up playing with boys who were all younger than me, so the thought of "dating" just didn't cross my mind. My first date, in tenth grade, was with her brother. She had wanted to go out with this older guy (already 18!) and her folks wouldn't let her unless it was a double-date. So, that's how I discovered boys were for more than tagging out at first. When I became part of the STERI (Student Teacher Environmental Research Interaction) program my junior year, I met plenty of boys who went to the boys' military school in town and had dates for the next two years and PLENTY of dances.
I also had a pen pal in Holland and that really opened my eyes to life in other parts of the world. After years of reading about life in other countries, I was ready to find out for myself. So, in March of my senior year of high school, I enlisted in the U.S. Navy for six years. I went active duty in December of that year.
Wherever the Navy sent me, no problem! I welcomed the chance to learn of new cultures, new languages, new geographies. I used the opportunity to make new friends, quickly, because I knew I wouldn't be at that duty station for long, 18 months to two years, tops. Adapt to the new environment, the new people, the new regime. This is not to say that I made lots of new friends, oh, no. I have always had only a few friends, people who I held dear then and still do, even though I have not seen many of them for decades now. But I knew a lot of people, whether fellow sailors or thespians or dancers or partakers of USO-sponsored events. Change was definitely good. Change kept life fresh.
And now, time has come for a change or two or more. A new tide to sweep my beach clean, taking away things no longer needed, revealing new treasures. My friend Sam foresaw things to come back in April, saying that I would soon enough be leaving Savannah, going on to new adventures. Bonnie saw change coming last Saturday, saying how good it was that I had come back to Savannah after traveling the world, but that maybe now was the time for new places, new beaches, new memories to be made.
Yep, I can definitely smell it in the air, like the cool freshness following a thunderstorm. Change. Not tomorrow, not next month, but soon.