Why do we seem to fight change so much? The older I get, the more I relish my favorite things. I tend to order the same thing off the same menu in the same restaurant. It's my comfy zone. I've connected it with good memories, and I guess I'm scared to change it up in case it turns out to be not such a great decision.
I'm feeling that clock ticking. Life is short. It's not worth the risk to be unhappy or out of my comfort zone.
You know you're old if you recognize this as a clock, if you can read it, AND if you know what the long skinny hand is measuring.
Switching gears---
Fall is definitely my favorite season. I love the moment that slight chill can be felt in the evening air when the sky is clear and a deep blue that one day in late August or early September, indicating a change is coming soon. It may still be weeks away, but now I know it's on its way. Autumn. Fall. The range of colors, from greens to reds to oranges to yellow, are painted across the landscape and dancing on the breeze.
So what, you may ask, has meatloaf got to do with change?
Comfort. I didn't always love meatloaf. It was okay. But it reminds me of my childhood, which was a very happy one. I'm grateful for that. I know my parents had to stretch that ground beef to feed a family of six on a minister's salary. I know that now. Again, I'm very grateful for that. I think I could eat meatloaf every day for the rest of my life. We had it about once a week back in the day, not quite as often as Ralphie had it with potatoes and cabbage from "A Christmas Story", another favorite of mine. We weren't big on cooked cabbage; it was corn for us, and I would dip my fork in my potatoes, getting a big blob, and then dip in the corn. My dad did it, and I did just about everything he did.
To quote Sheryl Crowe, "A change could do you good."
My family dynamics have changed a good deal the past few years...some happy, some very sad. There are many of you, if not all of you, who can relate to that. We didn't expect the change brought on by the pandemic; we weren't prepared. We expect autumn (some of us even long for it) and grab a jacket when we're heading out the door in the morning. Change, whether bad or good, may take us out of our comfort zone. That's not always a bad thing. How we face it, deal with it, and our attitude towards it is what makes all the difference. Notice I said we. Let's do it together. We are better together because spreading the burden makes the change easier to navigate, and spreading the joy makes a bigger impact on us all.