Change can be good. But it can also be hard.

I realize one can be interested in my blog for only so long with nothing presented to you but a constant stream of Instagram photos that give you just the tiniest window into my life.

It’s lazy, and while I enjoy the instant sharing capabilities of Instagram, I haven’t blogged much at all over the past year.

Since moving my old blog, Southern Web Girl, as it was called, over to Posterous from Blogger last year (which, by the way, did you know that Twitter has acquired Posterous?) I haven’t been writing as much. I think that partly stems from:

1) The fact that I decided to go with my own name as the domain, thereby making me a little more trepidacious (Is that a word? if not, I just coined it) about posting just anything, because everything is attached to my name as a professional.

2) The fact that my life has been a whirlwind over the past year. I’ll just call 2011 and 2012 “the era of change” for Kristen.

You know, change can be good. But it can also be hard. 

The husband, the dog and I picked up our lives in Birmingham, Alabama, last summer and moved to Orlando, Florida, for new opportunities. It was a tough decision — we left behind a house we owned, my parents 6 miles away, his parents 1.5 hours away, friends, neighbors, coworkers — and moved into an apartment roughly 8 miles from The Land of Mickey Mouse.

The vision we had was for me to further my career in digital media, and for the husband to further his cooking career. And, both of those things have happened.

However, the job I took last summer was not a fit. It didn’t feel quite right, or aligned to my skills and passions. But I pressed on. But then something happened, and I realized I didn’t have to be the square peg in the round hole.

So, I began looking, and I found a job that fit. I’m only in Week 2, and already I know that I’m meant for it.

So the lessons here are:

1) Listen to your gut. If you don’t get that surge of feeling telling you “yes!”, then go with that. Instincts are powerful.

2) Change is hard, and things don’t always happen as you plan. I’m in a job I love, in a city I love, but did it happen the way I expected? No.

3) You have the power to change things yourself. So many people are “stuck” in jobs they don’t like, or in cities they don’t love, or in relationships they’re not into. Well, guess what? You can get out of that situation if you simply make a choice to do so and adjust to the changes in your life. It will be hard — the routines will fall away. But you can do it.

My life has changed drastically over the past year. New job (twice), new city, adjusting to apartment life after living in a house, new car, new schedule, new people. But I’ve always had my husband and my dog; my family and my friends, be it in person, over the phone, over text — to get me through the tough adjustments and change.

Can you think of a time in your life that was an “era of change” like mine?