My friend recently lost their family dog. After I had given her a hug she shared how, days after she found herself grabbing the left over meat from dinner and walking out onto the porch to give her dog a treat. My face broke out into a smile and I shared my image of her standing on the porch with a wilted piece of meat in one hand and tears streaming down her face.
A laughter escaped my lips at the mental image and yet my heart sent a shudder of sorrow through my being. I feel so bad for laughing and yet it was out of an all too familiar place of reflection. All those times when I have found myself in strange, almost laughable, moment of weirdness.
Change is so hard. It throws us into weird moments. Really weird moments, not the"I forgot my wallet in the car" but more like "I just walked around the store for 45 min and still don't know why I came in" so when the cash register asks if you found everything ok and you respond by saying, "well I was looking for a really good cry on aisle 3 and couldn't find that, someone to hold me without a word for 5 days on aisle 7 and a glorified tissue that would turn my tears and boogers into a beautiful rainbow on aisle 11." And the craziest thing is that the grief of change does not give any fair warning when it is going to hit you. There is no internal clock that grief abides by. It does not wait for when you are alone in the shower and your tears can blend with the water. Change comes daily and with it so does a mixed measure of grief and with that comes weird moments when we realize that we haven't adjusted yet. We still grab leftover pieces of meat and walk out to the porch only to be met by sorrow, by tears.
And so I realized, as I embarrassingly laugh at the mental picture of my friend, the numerous mental images of myself, there is great honor to moments of weirdness. It is in those moments that change is sinking within, that the heart beats, with being a live, in all its shattered state of being.
Drastic change of losing a member of the family is such a sudden change. What once was a part of your daily existence is no longer.
I think how brave anyone is who can make life altering changes at the drop of a hat. It takes bravery to take a step into the void of change and uncertainty, to continue to move forward and refuse to stay where you have been. And yet these sudden changes take us off guard, our minds, our hearts, our bodies still return to familiarity whenever we attempt to regain our skip back in life. Subtle changes are just as hard but I have found they allow me to work through them as they are occurring but sudden changes. Well those just leave me trying to catch up with the current new skip of life, while mourning my last gait and while trying not to fall flat on my face.
And so it is bravery that I admire, bravery that I encourage. For change comes to us all and my quest is to meet each new change with bravery. Bravery to be caught on the porch with a wilted peace of meat in hand and tears streaming down my face. Bravery to allow the changes to change me into something good. Bravery to embrace the change while cherishing the tears and all the insecurities that accompany change. Bravery to turn the broken pieces of my heart into a bigger opening for love, grace, and understanding to pour through. Bravery to learn a new gait, a new dance, a new rhythm to my gander or a new gander all together. For as I walk/stumble along in life I realize that it is not my gait that defines me but much rather the direction in which I take my step.
So here is to change my friends, in all the good, bad, beautiful and ugly manners it rears it's head. Here is to us greeting change with bravery, with such bravery that we might just greet change as an old friend. A gentle kiss on the cheek, an open heart, and a smile mixed with tears.
A laughter escaped my lips at the mental image and yet my heart sent a shudder of sorrow through my being. I feel so bad for laughing and yet it was out of an all too familiar place of reflection. All those times when I have found myself in strange, almost laughable, moment of weirdness.
Change is so hard. It throws us into weird moments. Really weird moments, not the"I forgot my wallet in the car" but more like "I just walked around the store for 45 min and still don't know why I came in" so when the cash register asks if you found everything ok and you respond by saying, "well I was looking for a really good cry on aisle 3 and couldn't find that, someone to hold me without a word for 5 days on aisle 7 and a glorified tissue that would turn my tears and boogers into a beautiful rainbow on aisle 11." And the craziest thing is that the grief of change does not give any fair warning when it is going to hit you. There is no internal clock that grief abides by. It does not wait for when you are alone in the shower and your tears can blend with the water. Change comes daily and with it so does a mixed measure of grief and with that comes weird moments when we realize that we haven't adjusted yet. We still grab leftover pieces of meat and walk out to the porch only to be met by sorrow, by tears.
And so I realized, as I embarrassingly laugh at the mental picture of my friend, the numerous mental images of myself, there is great honor to moments of weirdness. It is in those moments that change is sinking within, that the heart beats, with being a live, in all its shattered state of being.
Drastic change of losing a member of the family is such a sudden change. What once was a part of your daily existence is no longer.
I think how brave anyone is who can make life altering changes at the drop of a hat. It takes bravery to take a step into the void of change and uncertainty, to continue to move forward and refuse to stay where you have been. And yet these sudden changes take us off guard, our minds, our hearts, our bodies still return to familiarity whenever we attempt to regain our skip back in life. Subtle changes are just as hard but I have found they allow me to work through them as they are occurring but sudden changes. Well those just leave me trying to catch up with the current new skip of life, while mourning my last gait and while trying not to fall flat on my face.
And so it is bravery that I admire, bravery that I encourage. For change comes to us all and my quest is to meet each new change with bravery. Bravery to be caught on the porch with a wilted peace of meat in hand and tears streaming down my face. Bravery to allow the changes to change me into something good. Bravery to embrace the change while cherishing the tears and all the insecurities that accompany change. Bravery to turn the broken pieces of my heart into a bigger opening for love, grace, and understanding to pour through. Bravery to learn a new gait, a new dance, a new rhythm to my gander or a new gander all together. For as I walk/stumble along in life I realize that it is not my gait that defines me but much rather the direction in which I take my step.
So here is to change my friends, in all the good, bad, beautiful and ugly manners it rears it's head. Here is to us greeting change with bravery, with such bravery that we might just greet change as an old friend. A gentle kiss on the cheek, an open heart, and a smile mixed with tears.
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