I'm 48, nearly 49, obviously I have changed. Everything about me from the number on my scale to even the height mark on the door has changed. Inside, outside, upside and downside, people change. Otherwise there would be a whole lot of newborns laying around without fire or the wheel etc and, well, it seems like evolution and all that requires change. So there you go.
Think of your own life, your own journey. What has changed you most? And what have been the good and bad changes that you have made? Would you trade out the bad or did they lead to better? Or did they lead to worse? At some point in life, we have to own the changes we have made or the change we have become and know that that is who we are and move on from that. I think that is finally where I am.
I am different than I was, obviously. But when was 'was'? Did I change when I moved to each new city? Yes, because each new city brought new challenges for me that I had to adapt to. Those new challenges were sometimes similar, new city, more children, Danny away with deployments and training. And then there were the changes of being in a different country, or learning how to balance my own work with deployments and growing children and having a home I was responsible for, not a lease. And in all of that, is adapting to the changes that are happening in the lives of the people around me as well. I have never been successful at that. Own it, and move forward.
I can't and won't look back anymore on the should haves and could haves of my past. I accept that each decision I made, right or wrong, is mine. I can't undo a decision, but if it were the wrong one, I can take steps to rectify it. Like the hallway paint color, horrible choice, I can paint over. Like my anger toward someone that was very close to me, nothing I can do to paint over that, I have learned to live with it and forgive myself for the grudge that I held.
Here's the other thing, we don't know what causes a person to change. We don't know what is happening in a life that makes someone become angry all the time, or unhealthy or despondent. I also know that I generally didn't ask, just made assumptions, but I am changing that behavior.
And where is all this discussion of change coming from, you may ask, well, several months ago, I got told that I had changed (and not for the better I might add!) when I moved to Des Moines. And that is fair. I have definitely changed in the past nearly 18 years. In this time, I have experienced some situations that I never dreamt I would, and for as much as the day to day of living can change a person, add in illness and death and at times, a very different and dark day to day, you bet your ass I have changed. I don't apologize for who I have become and I don't think I need to. I also don't think I need to spend any more time on justifying who I have become. As Goethe so eloquently said "If God wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise." Meaning, I am here as God's creation, not someone else's idea of what I should be. That being said, God did create me as a work in progress and I continue to progress and change.
Even today, I changed. I got outside of a fear and I ran a mile. Within that mile was some walking, some resting, some jogging but there was also running. And I wasn't running from my problems, but running towards my solutions. That is part of the continual change that is taking place within me.
This living business can be tricky. I have had to decide who do I please, who do I change for, who do I want to be. I may please no one unless they choose to be pleased by my actions, I may change for no one but myself because only I know who I choose to be.
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