My Cheese Moved to Timbuktu

Since moving from Grad City to New City, I have had a hard time finding happiness. Everything is different about this new place: the type of apartment we rent, our roles as husband/wife, the climate, the way I get to work, the people at work, my role at work, what we do for recreation, and the presence/absence of friends. The transition has been markedly more difficult than I could have imagined.

With every breath of my new life, I have been longing for some reminder of my old life. I have been wanting all of these new circumstances here to just *poof* change back to what they used to be. Denial and resistance have been my favorite tune as of late, along with a lot of whining and complaining (just ask my husband). I have been completely uncomfortable.

Am I such a fuddy-dud in my relatively young age that I cannot adapt to new situations? The apparent answer is yes, si, oui, ja, da, hai! Find me some dentures, and call me Granny.

A couple of years ago, I successfully navigated a period of intense change, and smartly purchased for myself the well-known book, Who Moved My Cheese? I digested it, learned from it (however briefly), and put it back on my bookshelf.

The other night, as I was wallowing in the depths of my soggy tissues, lamenting the loss of my old life, my husband plucked that dusty book off of my bookshelf, and threw it at my person (narrowly missing my left eye).

I dove into the book the next morning, and it has been of enormous relief to me and my change-fearing innards. The premise of the book is that Cheese is what makes us happy, whether that be money, prestige, or (in my case) comfort. Change is inevitable, and your Cheese is going to move with the change. The book shows you how to summon the courage to follow your Cheese.

For me, one of the most relevant pieces of advice is "The quicker you let go of old cheese, the sooner you can enjoy new cheese." I can see now that sitting around all day wishing I was in comfortable Grad Lab with fabulous Grad Advisor and good Grad Friends is going to get me nowhere in New City and my crazy new lab where everything is different.

This weekend, I am picking myself up in the hunt for new Cheese. What kind of Cheese will I find? Your guess is as good as mine, but there had better be some extra sharp cheddar around here somewhere.