Change.

I used to hate change. It took me ten whole years (I wish I was kidding) to really love where we currently live after moving from a beloved place. That’s ten years, multiple jobs, 2 additional kids later. But now I love it. I really, really love it. 

Did the place change? Some. Did I change? A lot. 

I used to be so terrible at change. My muscles for it were atrophied, I craved stability, inviting only resistance. Change felt daunting and the unknown scared me. I sought out charts and models for understanding the stages of change (I like this one best and will forever hear a former manager’s words “all models are broken, some are useful”) to better understand and normalize what I was going through.  

We chose Durham all those years ago really deliberately. She had a racially diverse middle class, an outpost and office of the company I worked for at the time and some pretty spectacular people and families who I knew and trusted lived there, showing me what was possible. And they had a remarkable minor league baseball team. What wasn’t to love? I looked, though, at Durham through my San Francisco lenses. I wanted her to be something different: a neighborhood in SF versus a place unto herself. 

In that ten years Durham changed, sure. She’s been changing and growing rapidly with myriad consequences. That’s not exactly what this is about. This is about how I looked at Durham and how that changed how I see her - a lot. I saw her for what she is and what she could be versus through the lens of an entirely different, beloved place. Seeing Durham from a place of strength and uniqueness helped me find more pockets of beauty and ease, see our community as strong, rich, diverse and supportive and find my footing as a mom, woman and entrepreneur. Some of my favorite people in the whole world live here, so that certainly helps.

That lens shift shifted everything. Those who know me well, know that I have a habit of changing the furniture in our house. I can move furniture independently in ways that my personal strength probably shouldn’t allow. I love the fresh look and feel and energy of a room after a refresh. Besides, the couch needs to face the windows in the spring, so we can see the greenery and growth.  Whether in my living room, my life, the organizations I’ve worked with to help move through change, I’ve grown to love it. All the ideation, all the creativity, all the ways to do it righter. Change just is. It’s inevitable. How can we move ourselves and our teams through it with greater ease, clarity, justice and joy? 

Need to situate yourself, your couch, your lens to see the good, growth and beauty? I can help you see possibility on a more rapid timeline than my (shameful) 10 years and help your team move through rapid growth or downsize and do it in a people-forward, justice-centered way.