Change

Recently one of my favorite restaurants changed ownership and made some capricious (read: bad) changes to their menu. I felt pretty upset about it, which sounds silly given the things that are actually wrong in the world, but I’d been going to that restaurant for nearly two decades and had grown pretty attached to it being there in the specific way that it existed up until now.

Upon moving back to the city I grew up in a couple years ago, I noticed that a lot of the people who’d never left liked to complain about how much everything here has changed over the years. I’ve always appreciated the balance of old vs. new that exists here—If nothing had changed over the years, it would likely feel stale and I probably wouldn’t have even wanted to live here again. Instead, despite having lived here for the better part of the first twenty years of my life, I have a long list of new places to check out that I’m nowhere near completing. In fact, it seems to be more often the case that I’m adding things to that list than removing them.

I started thinking about some of the new places I’d been to recently, which didn’t exist before I moved back here. A brewery with delicious wood-fired pizza. An orchard & cider distillery where on a summer evening one can sit outside and look at rolling green hills, and feel a cool breeze embrace them as an accordion inhales and exhales the melody to a song played by a local band.

I still love the used book sales, affordable bagel sandwiches, and botanic gardens of old. I really do, however, appreciate the importance of the dynamism of where I live. I suppose it’s a good lesson in embracing change and learning to love new things.

Now if only I could find a new place to get a good burrito.