Finding Freedom

I used to hate change.

Unless I initiated the change, and sometimes even then, I would fight it so hard, swinging and kicking, ranting against the injustice, refusing to give in.

It was useless, of course. Change happens; life is change. Whether you like it or not.

I also worried about change — all of it out of my control. What would happen if one of my good work friends quit? What would happen if my boyfriend broke up with me? What would happen when my grandparents passed? What would happen if one of my parents got sick? Would I be able to handle it? Would I be able to move forward? Would my life be the same?

What I have learned about myself, in the fifty years I’ve been alive, is that change doesn’t care about those things. Change doesn’t care if you can handle it. It’s going to jump in and do what it wants and change your life, pushing you in whatever direction it needs to.

But, what I’ve also learned is that I can handle it. I can move forward. Even if my life has changed into something much different than I had intended it to be.

I’ve even become, dare I say it, resilient.

I’ve never thought of myself as resilient. For so long, I’ve lived with the story that originated from some (well-deserved) feedback I once got from a boss. That I need to work on adapting to change. That I’m still the way I once was. That I haven’t grown. That I haven’t learned anything.

But, in the over ten years since that feedback was given, I’ve actually changed myself quite a bit. I’m not as resistant as I once was. I’ve learned to adapt pretty quickly.

At my day job, there are a bunch of changes going on. And with every change, my initial reaction has been to fight. I’ve just recently recognized a pattern. It starts with something like: “How can they possibly ask us to share desks?! This is an outrage,” and ends a week to a month later with the change being part of my regular life like nothing had ever been different.

So, why, I asked myself, if I’ve become more resilient — if I know I’ll adapt — is my first reaction still to resist?

It’s because I’m not in control.

My life would be much easier if I just accepted things and went with the flow. I want that for me so badly. And while I’m getting better, my first instinct is still to fight. My body tenses and my heart rate speeds up and I internally rail at the unfairness of it all. Even if it’s just for a day.

A work friend and I were talking the other day about a meme that’s been going around about how, when you’re a kid, you want to make all your own decisions but, when you’re an adult, you want someone to make the decisions for you. It’s true. Decisions are hard. I want help. But I also don’t. I want to control things.

It’s a delicate dance. You have to find that balance. The balance between accepting and controlling. The balance between never bending and bending too much.

That balance is agency.

It’s important that the characters you’re writing about have agency. They need to be able to make choices and decisions. They need to have influence over their own life. And, if they don’t have this at the start of the book, they need to have it by the end.

People don’t want to read about someone who has no control over their own life. Someone who is constantly having stuff happening to them throughout the whole book. It’s tiring to read about someone who is always the victim. And it’s super frustrating.

If your character is always being put upon by others to the point where their work sucks and their family sucks and their friends suck and all they do is take it and complain, you just want to yell, “DUDE! Get yourself out of these situations for the love of God. Stop whining and do something about it!”

Or, if you’re like me, you just close the book and stop reading.

Now, of course, there are a great many books where the character doesn’t have agency at the beginning of the novel. Where they are very passive in their own life. But, in these cases, the character achieving agency is part of the character arc. Throughout the book, they stop being a victim and they learn that they need to take control. They quit their job, or they leave their partner, or they move to Africa, and the ending is satisfying, and I give the book five stars on Goodreads and all is right with the world again.

With both my books, Someone to Kiss and Love Julie, the feedback my publisher gave me was that the main characters needed to eventually achieve more agency over their lives. And she was right both times.

And, maybe I initially wrote them that way because I rarely had agency when I was in a relationship. I often fell into the same routine of becoming what my partner wanted so things would stay the same. So I wouldn’t have to deal with change.

But, in the end, I did stop being the victim. I did take control. I changed my life myself. And, like the characters in my books, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I posted my twelve favourite books of the year on Instagram and Facebook. If you didn’t see them, here is a video I made of them all.

I also very much enjoyed this book, which I read after Christmas.

I’m about one chapter into this and so far it seems good. I was going to read another Thriller but then last night I had a dream my parents were kidnapped and I woke up feeling like I just had a panic attack, so I think I’ll take a breather.

I’m about two-thirds done the first draft of my Thriller/Suspense Bound (working title) and am well on my way to completing it by early February. That said, the draft is VERY rough and needs a lot of love in the form of rewrites. But the first step is just getting the story down on the page, right? RIGHT?! Sigh.

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A heartwarming festive tale about overcoming grief with the power of friendship, family and of course love!