Change is difficult. For some of us, it's more difficult. We like routines, schedules, a sense of normalcy. We like having, meeting, and being able to meet expectations. We like knowing that, when everything around us falls apart, the steadfast routines that we've created as part of our lives will remain in tact and give us something to hold to until the winds of the storm die down and we can come out of the shelter we've taken refuge behind. So, what happens when the change is not the approaching storm, but the shelter that we took comfort in knowing would protect us?
Life is fluid. For some of us, it's more fluid. We can't all hold the same job for 30 years and retire taking solace in the fact that we scraped by, did what had to be done, and were able to hand the reins over to the next kid to do our job for the next thirty. Some of us marry early thinking that we've got everything figured out and that this is who we are supposed to be with forever. It works, until one of you decides that the paint on the white picket fence doesn't shine quite as brightly as it used to. Not everyone is gets to forge lifelong friendships wherein they see and meet with and enjoy the company of their friends and their friends' families as the calendar pages turn year after year, building memories and sharing more stories than could ever be remembered and told while sitting around a campfire. People change, friends move, both physically and emotionally, differences arise, and those we held dearest to us often become those we have pushed farthest away.
Love is hard. For some of us, it's harder. We are closed-off. Our walls are high either by choice or because someone has caused us to build them higher every time someone has broken them down. We all aren't optimists. The good in people is more difficult to see; it's easier to find ways and reasons to keep people out than it is to let them in. That is our rock and our comfort; knowing that we are in charge of who gets in and out. The hardest part of love is figuring out what to do when the person who tears down the walls was the person you willingly let in and not the person trying to get in. Once they're in, they know you; your likes, dislikes, secrets, regrets, hopes, dreams, aspirations, feelings, what you're thinking when you run your hands through your own hair or chew on your fingernails, what you worry about when you lie in bed, and, though you've said nothing and tears are racing down your face and into your pillow, how you like to have your back rubbed or just a hand on your head to let you know that they know.
In the end, we all travel our own paths. Some of us walk the road, paved by the millions who've gone before us. Others cut their own through the fields that no one else bothers to look twice at, unafraid of what lies ahead. Neither path is wrong. And, in the end, they all lead to the same place; a hole in the ground and a stone headpiece that no one will care about in 30 years.
Henry David Thoreau said, "The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." Some of us, metaphorically, live more expensively than others. Some will die penniless and wonder why we spent so much on so little. Hopefully, when we look back, we'll all know that what we paid for life was worth what we got out of it.
Life is fluid. For some of us, it's more fluid. We can't all hold the same job for 30 years and retire taking solace in the fact that we scraped by, did what had to be done, and were able to hand the reins over to the next kid to do our job for the next thirty. Some of us marry early thinking that we've got everything figured out and that this is who we are supposed to be with forever. It works, until one of you decides that the paint on the white picket fence doesn't shine quite as brightly as it used to. Not everyone is gets to forge lifelong friendships wherein they see and meet with and enjoy the company of their friends and their friends' families as the calendar pages turn year after year, building memories and sharing more stories than could ever be remembered and told while sitting around a campfire. People change, friends move, both physically and emotionally, differences arise, and those we held dearest to us often become those we have pushed farthest away.
Love is hard. For some of us, it's harder. We are closed-off. Our walls are high either by choice or because someone has caused us to build them higher every time someone has broken them down. We all aren't optimists. The good in people is more difficult to see; it's easier to find ways and reasons to keep people out than it is to let them in. That is our rock and our comfort; knowing that we are in charge of who gets in and out. The hardest part of love is figuring out what to do when the person who tears down the walls was the person you willingly let in and not the person trying to get in. Once they're in, they know you; your likes, dislikes, secrets, regrets, hopes, dreams, aspirations, feelings, what you're thinking when you run your hands through your own hair or chew on your fingernails, what you worry about when you lie in bed, and, though you've said nothing and tears are racing down your face and into your pillow, how you like to have your back rubbed or just a hand on your head to let you know that they know.
In the end, we all travel our own paths. Some of us walk the road, paved by the millions who've gone before us. Others cut their own through the fields that no one else bothers to look twice at, unafraid of what lies ahead. Neither path is wrong. And, in the end, they all lead to the same place; a hole in the ground and a stone headpiece that no one will care about in 30 years.
Henry David Thoreau said, "The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." Some of us, metaphorically, live more expensively than others. Some will die penniless and wonder why we spent so much on so little. Hopefully, when we look back, we'll all know that what we paid for life was worth what we got out of it.
