Change

Change.

It's a funny thing, change. I want so many things to change: the healthcare system, a stop to wars, for the rich to give more to things that matter. I want my mom to change. I want to change the way society views beauty.

I want to change the world.

But there are even more things that I don't want to change.

See, I've always been someone who loves stability, tradition. I look forward to making the same Christmas cookies while watching the same Christmas movie every year. For the past three years, I loved that no matter how good or bad my day was, I knew that I would be coming home to three of my best friends.

But everything is changing. It's like I'm inside a giant snow globe and someone has turned it upside down and shaken it up to watch the snow swirl.

Now, I have to fight for what I want to stay the same. I have to convince my family that we need to make the cookies that we've been making every year since before I was born.

But what's worse are the things that have changed that I can't control. My friends and I graduated, thus we can't live together anymore. I moved to a new area where I don't know anyone. The Breast Cancer 3-Day, the event that I look forward to every year, is changing the way they do some things. The Go Girl Academy, of which I was a member this summer, doesn't need any volunteers or help, so I'm disconnected from that group of friends.

Right now, my world consists of going to work, coming home, and sleeping.

Most people dread having to go to the doctor, but I look forward to it. (Health issues aside, that is.) Milah, my PCP, is one of the only stable parts of my life. I can be open and honest with her about how I'm feeling, and she can always find some way to make me smile. Last week was a particularly low point, and I felt so alone and sad. Milah had said that I could always call her ("Even at 2am! And I don't say that to a lot of people.") so I called her, in tears. She talked me through what was going through my mind, and helped me come up with a plan to some of the problems I was having. Before we hung up, she said that she's a proud member of "Team Stephanie." (I'm thinking of getting t-shirts.) She's my biggest cheerleader, and one of the only people that I can trust and count on.

In my little snow globe, I'm glad that I have someone to hold my hand when everything gets turned upside down again.