Spring and the Art of Romanticizing

So maybe it’s just me, but I genuinely suck at adjusting. I might hide it well (thank you, ADHD!!), but it’s just so overwhelming – like, why can’t everything stay the same? A naive point of view at my grand age of 22, but oh, well. We all think about it every now and then. And right now, change is running RAMPANT in my life. New opportunities, new people in my life, new feelings, new responsibilities, and a gosh darn ‘nother change in the weather. Curse that groundhog. Just as I start adjusting to winter – the cute cold-weather outfits, finally figuring out which beanie makes my hair not flat, and powering through iced lattes in negative degrees, we get warmer weather. At this point I’m doubting adjusting to anything or even devoting time to the thought of acclimating, because what’s the point? In two seconds it’ll all change again and I’ll have to sort all my ducks, put a pin in one thing or another, and tie up the bazillion loose ends I have in my life. It’s exhausting.

But! What is life in your 20s without a little exhaustion, caffeine, and rapid-fire change (that may be unwelcome – but we deal with it)? Now, don’t get me wrong, change can still be sucky and not exactly what we’re looking for, but one of the beauties of being young and scrappy is turning a crappy situation into something (semi) doable. 

I’ve found that the best ways to really force myself to adjust to change and make it tolerable is to simply romanticize all of it. Monday morning meeting at 9 a.m. that suddenly popped up out of nowhere? Too bad, now you’re a successful corporate working baddie who is all of a sudden a morning person. Is it 60 degrees and rainy on hair wash day? Skip the blowout. Wear your natural curls, waves, or whatever hair texture you have – think Julia Roberts, Carrie Bradshaw, Salma Hayek. Embrace the frizz and the poof. It’s so liberating. And a bit overwhelming sometimes, but who cares? It’s your hair – the rules never said it had to behave. Daylight savings time means one less hour of sleep. But guess what else it means? 7 P.M. SUNSETS BABY! Bye bye seasonal depression – it’s time for 8 p.m. impromptu ice cream runs and 2 hour walks around our college town. 

Romanticizing the change in the season might seem trivial, but honestly, it’s so effective. I’ve started caring less about the microscopic things going wrong in my day. The little things I can’t iron out fully, but don’t really matter. Embrace the imperfections in your life and just go with the flow.

Here are a few more things I’ve tried doing to romanticize change!

• Mixing and matching colors in my outfits – blue and brown, pink and red, etc.

• New playlists! I just made one called “Windows Down” and it’s getting me so excited for drives with my friends, wind in our hair, screaming at the tops of our lungs, and wayyy too many sweet treats.

• Poetry! I’ve been loving Mary Oliver lately – she mixes beautiful scenic poetry with lessons on life and being a woman and it’s such a refreshing change in the content I consume.

• Spontaneity. I’m not joking – even I, in all my Type A glory, have begun to embrace the thrills of whimsy. I love my schedule and routine until the day I die, but I admit there’s a certain je ne sais quoi about letting your day go where it wants to go. 

Change can be so refreshing, and at the same time, so annoying. Finding the little ways to make it cuter or sweeter has made a huge difference in my life personally (even if it involves a little extra creativity). For those of us in the Northeast, we have a couple more weeks – if not at least a month – until warm weather hits us, and these hacks are taking away the winter blues for me by bringing in a little more joy!

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