As I was doing my internship at NASA, so many years ago, I started to feel myself expanding. I was fluffing out in my capacities.

I knew that the person I was becoming was getting too big to fit in the current life I had. That worried me. I knew my life. I didn’t want to lose what my life had.

And so, I went to my husband. That would be my FIRST husband. I said “You know that I am growing as a person, reaching for possibilities. I want to do this, I want to achieve and become all I can be. But I know this will cause us to lose closeness.”

He didn’t get it. He gave the ‘right’ answer to what he thought I was saying:

“I want you to become the best you can be. Don’t worry about it! Go achieve what you can.”

First, that wasn’t what I was saying. I was going to become regardless of his desires or support. THat is what people do.

Second, that wasn’t true. He was not at all happy when I began to progress in my career and pile up accomplishments. It made him profoundly uncomfortable and he tried to sabotage

Third, I called it. I knew that as I grew, he would not keep pace. I was going to be seeing things and understanding the world in a way he did not, and did not want to. My reaching out to him was to ask him to open up and come along. To be brave and reach and stay with me.

That conversation is coming back to me now. I am on the cusp of taking some chances. And I am realizing, there are some people, some of my friends and loved ones, who are not coming with me.

Once again, people who I thought were on the same page and shared my values are coming into the crucible.

What are we made of?

I’m pretty sure I have the stuff to come through to the other side. That this effort and trial will purify me, and make me more like what I want to be.

I just hate to lose those people who came this far with me. But I better have faith that better things are coming.

change is scary