View from the North 40: FYI, change is hard

Turns out, change can be like fertilizer for the brain.

I was in a rut. Then I moved into a home that’s very much under construction, and now life is a struggle to achieve an average, everyday level of existence. The drama from last week continues, but we’re better fed.

The biggest update on our move into the home construction zone is that we now have a stove. I know it’s rude to brag, but I just have to gush about the fact that the stove has an oven, too. We’re trying to stay grounded, cook simple foods that the common folk eat such as breakfast, lunch and dinner, and not get all hoity-toity about having a major household appliance at our beck and call.

You know what helps keep you grounded in this situation? Not having a countertop work space.

The first day, every time we had to set down or fetch a utensil or lid or seasoning bottle or hot pad or any of the myriad of accouterment needed for simply cooking an egg or reheating stew, we had to traverse the 16 feet between the stove and the closest horizontal surface: The construction worktable. First, though, there’s that muscle memory of reaching to where a countertop, or cupboard or rack used to be, and that moment when the brain says, “No, wait. What? What was I trying to do? How does this work now?”

Day Two in our life with a stove, my husband, who was working on getting me a functional computer and workspace, remembered we had TV trays in the upstairs storage, so he climbed the ladder, fetched one out of the Hinterland of Things and lowered it down off the deck to me so we could use it next to the stove.

I thought this was a very clever solution to hold us over until I could, on Day Three, get the portable woodworking bench, which used to belong to my grandpa, cleared off, washed up and set up next to the stove to give us not only a counter to work on, but also storage underneath. I know. Now you want one too.

I’d feel more uppity about this elaborate workspace, but I know it took me 12 hours to remember the term “TV tray,” which I kept calling “a, um, y’know, those little personal folding tables that you can use when eating in front of the television.” Also, it was about five hours after I got grandpa’s woodworking bench set up as a kitchen counter before I remembered that, all along, we had a folding card table leaning against the wall right next to the worktable — about 20 feet from the stove — that we could’ve used from Day One.

That would’ve been a handy 3-foot by 3-foot temporary countertop. Duh.

In my defense, my life has become an endless loop of hunting for lost things, shuffling stuff around and cleaning.

It’s exhausting.

Where’s this? Where do I put that? How do I get a thing done? What are all the things that need to be done before I can do the thing I actually need to get done? Yes, I could pace myself a little bit to ease the physical stress. The mental onslaught, though, is constant. This is really surprising to me — I just never imagined how this change of living space after three decades in the same home, and the chaotic circumstances of the emergency move, would be so … I think the word is: aaaaagh!

That’s not a technical term. But there is plenty of research on change to define that reaction.

The Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, developed in the late 1960s, early ’70s, is a list of 43 stressors in life — from marriage to divorce, vacation to a new job. Basically it looks at life changes, both positive and negative, and assigns a numeric value to the degree to which it adds stress to one’s life.

After noting all the changes that apply to your life, you tally your score, and if that total is 150-299, your risk of becoming ill is moderate.

If your score is over 300 then you are “at risk of illness” the scale says, which seems a bit vague to me. The American Institute of Stress says it means you have an “80% chance of health breakdown within the next two years.” So I guess, if that’s you, put your doctor on speed dial.

The good news is, though, that change fosters a thing call neuroplasticity which is the ability of the brain to grow new synaptic connections, especially in response to learning, experiences or recovery from an injury.

Change, therefore, is the poster child for “that which does not kill us makes us stronger.” In fact, even if it tries to kill us, if we recover, we’ll be better than before.

I might’ve added 10 years to my life just getting through the first 10 days of this move. Still, I think I’ll put my doctor on speed dial.

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I don’t recommend anyone follow my path to better brain things, though, at http://www.facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40 .