Change

Change is difficult - I've said that a million times at least, it seems. Even if something is not the best for us, it seems like it is hard to make a change and go a different way. With another great sadness invading our home this weekend, it has caused me to ponder relationships and insecurities and changes all over again. Why are we such creatures of habit? Why is it that we feel so much safer when we're in control and things are, shall we say, "as they have always been"? Of course, when talking about broken relationships, there is also the obvious emotions of missing the person you've grown to care about and have spent time with, but then there's also the practicality of doing things alone or in a different way than you have before - we just don't seem to like it, do we? Everything new seems to put us out of our "comfort zone". I'm not trying to belittle the heartbreak of a broken relationship, but I also have to wonder how much of our pain is because everything is scary and new and different. I know when I got divorced years ago, part of my "discomfort" and pain was exactly this - I was now solely responsible for three young lives, aged 7, 9, and 11; I was required to go to work, make arrangements for the kids, and on and on - things would never be the same in our lives. It was scary and uncomfortable. I remember my dad giving me perhaps the best piece of advice that I received during that time. He told me to try to see this as a new beginning - that I could do and/or be anything I wanted. Maybe if we were able to look at all the changes that come our way with "unsettling" consequences as opportunities to do anything we wanted, we would at least be able to embrace the change, and it might be a little less uncomfortable for us.