My lips started trembling, my eyes started stinging, and I knew, I just knew, I was going to cry.
I stared morosely at the alleged “peanut-butter and jelly” sandwich in front of me and saw a tear fall on the bizarre creation. My six-year-old mind simply could not understand why the bread was too dark, the peanut-butter too bumpy, and the jelly a whole different color. The jelly was what really bothered me. I could deal with wheat bread, or even crunchy peanut-butter, but yellow jelly was too much.
“Megan,” Mrs. Roche, my babysitter, asked, “why on earth are you crying?” I couldn’t answer due to the unbearable tension in my throat. I just couldn’t tell her I was crying over the atrocity she had made.
“Is it the sandwich?” she asked. I reluctantly nodded my head. My embarrassed blush was steadily turning my face the color jelly was supposed to be.
She picked up the sandwich and examined it carefully. “Is it the jelly?” I started crying harder in relief. She understood! I wouldn’t have to explain why I was crying after all.
“It’s just apple jelly, silly. It tastes fine!” she said, laughing. Horror was setting in again as I realized that she wanted me to eat it, that I was not getting a regular peanut-butter and jelly sandwich anytime soon.
Reluctantly, I picked up the sandwich, hand shaking and tears flying, and nibbled on the end. This is the moment when I’m supposed to say that by trying a different kind of sandwich, I embraced change and became a more open person, willing to try new things.
I hated it.
My tongue automatically rejected it and my gag reflex kicked in before I even tasted it. That’s exactly how I felt about change. I thought that if it was different, it had to be bad. Nothing necessarily changed because of that day with the sandwich, but I’ve always used that day as a reference point. I look back and marvel at how my outlook has changed. To my great surprise, I’ve discovered that change can be enjoyable.
The changes weren’t my decision at first. Going to junior high instead of elementary school terrified me. But when I determined that my sentence was inescapable, I accepted the change and had a great time. As I got older, I started choosing change over consistency. Freshman year, I decided to play in the marching band instead of playing volleyball. Volleyball was the “safe” decision, since I’d played before, but marching band turned out to be even more fun than volleyball.
Change can be terrifying, but it can also be exhilarating. I didn’t understand that when I was eating the peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. Its story is one of my most embarrassing moments, but it serves as a perfect measuring tool for how much I’ve changed. Now, when I’m faced with change, I think to myself: Relax, it can’t be worse than that awful peanut-butter and jelly sandwich.