Why is change so difficult for some people? I find it so hard and bewildering to say the least. Even small changes make my heart stop and I find myself getting all breathless. It's not that I am afraid of the physical strain involved, it is the psychological. I've been trying to analyze this feeling. I realized that for me, being in a place, is like putting down roots. Teeny weeny ones, very tentatively go into the ground and then they get stronger, and go deeper in. This is the time when I settle in, put all the necessary, familiar things around the house to make it home, find the doodhwalah, the newspaperwalah, the subziwalah, and the dhobi, and all those people who go into making life smooth. These are the people who take away the feeling of anonymity and form the outlines of daily living. They become important to you just as you become important to them. Slowly, one smiles at those one sees every day on the way to work, or when going out. An unspoken, most often, connection is made. Then when a life throws a dice that means change, oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh all those roots have to be yanked out. The feeling is of life-giving sustenance being stopped. So what is this life-giving sustenance? It is the feeling of comfort - the comfort of the familiar and the known. For me, even if I have to go from one known place to another, it is as if my life-blood is draining out. It's double this when I have to go to a new place.......Then, when the yanking of all the roots is done, and I am in the new, unknown place or the old, known place, the process begins again. The sun is out and shining and my roots start growing again, nourished by new/old soil!