I love the holidays! Especially after them, because all the candy is like half priced! ... Yeah, I am large! I can't help it. When I see day after Easter, jelly beans, chocolate bunnies and Easter Ghirardelli chocolates ... yes you heard me right, Ghirardelli ... for 70% OFF, I just have to have me some! So I bought this package for like $1 and I asked my wife if she wanted me to get her a package too ... yeah, I wasn't sharing! She decided to be all responsible and she tells me no she didn't need it. So I said that's fine and just got mine. I ate a few of those delectable little chocolates and I thought, I'm going to save some for the next day. Responsible right ... NO it was foolish! Three of my chocolates were gone the next day! Three of them! My wife obviously changed her mind. After confronting her, she proceeds to tell me how delicious they were and how she should have gotten a package all her own ... yes, I KNOW! I go on to finish the rest of the package and she has the nerve to get upset that I ate them all! Really, you get upset because I eat MY candy! The following night she reminds me of how good they were and that she would like me to go back to the store and get her a package. I go to get my shoes on, jacket and keys. As I was about to leave, she says, "no, stay here, I don't need it." So I stay, put up my keys, shoes and jacket. As I start to sit down next to her she tells me again about how tasty those Ghirardelli chocolates were and that she actually would like me to go and get her some. I go again and get my shoes, keys and jacket. As I head back out to the living room she stops me again and says "no, I really don't need it." I asked her "are you sure?" And she says "yes I'm sure." I returned my shoes, keys, and jacket. Then I sat back down beside her on the couch. Now when we went to bed, I had gotten in my pajamas, laid down beside her and she says "you know I really would like that Ghirardelli chocolate!" ... I immediately said "NO!" I kissed her on the forehead and went to sleep. Yesterday I went to the store and I thought, as a loving husband, "let me get her that chocolate." I went and searched in the discounted candy but they were out of it by then, so I bought some malted eggs instead (which she can't have as she is allergic to gluten) :)!
She kept changing her mind! I nearly couldn't keep up.
When I was like five or six years old, I had this friend at church named Maria. She was energetic and fun. I even remember having a five-year-old pretend karate match with her and kicking her rather hard one time (accidentally) and she bounced right back up ready to go another round! Later that year I was told by my parents that Maria was sick and that I needed to be a bit more careful with her. I honestly didn't notice much difference at first but over the coming years learned a lot more about her disease. Maria has a muscular dystrophy. A muscular disease that hasn't allowed her muscles to develop and even deteriorated them. She had get a motorized wheel chair and lost nearly all of her mobility. Though she never lost her spunk, she rarely was afraid to step in and tell you what she thought. Today she is in her thirties, is married and has kids. Maria, however, went through a huge change in her life.
Change is a part of life! It happens. Good changes and seemingly bad changes. Change happens to those who do good and those who do bad things in life. Sometimes the change means that we can do or have more and other times it means we do or have less.
"Change is the only constant in life!" Heraclitus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)
If we can't stop change from happening, how do we digest it? How do we deal with it? Is it an attitude? Is it yoga? Do we just hide and sleep it away? Do we attack it and change it back? Changes, bad changes, can obviously cause stress and anxiety. How do we keep from being tied up in knots over it?
I have a friend, Ann, who worked for a family services organization that had a residential campus for rehabilitation and development for kids and teens going through difficult situations. Their families could visit during a few hours every three weeks but there were some whose parents gave them over to the state and therefore these kids would not have visitors. This made that weekend in particular difficult for some of these kids. Ann came to me and several of my friends and asked if we would be willing to visit with some of these kids on that weekend for a little bit every three weeks which we did. It took a while for them to warm up but when they did you could see the anticipation they had for the next time they would get to see you. It was a positive change in their life and really a positive change in mine!
To be honest, I can't tell you how to deal with change. I am not here to give you a seven step process to handle any of the changes that can occur in your family, job or friends. It would be easy to give some "get over it" philosophy with a "think positively" structure that sounds great in theory but can be impractical as we are emotional and erratic. However, what I do know is that we can positively enact change into the lives of others! If change is inevitable then why not use it to the advantage of benefiting others? Change is going to happen and if we can be a part of helping, appreciating and accepting someone else, we will make things better! We will make things right and the positive changes we have made for someone else will bleed over to affect us very much in the same way!
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