Changes

The most important thing I’ve learned of late is that change, while inevitable, is as natural as it is non-threatening. No matter what happens around me, I am safe and I am loved.

New neighbours downstairs? I’ll adapt (they’ve turned out to be wonderful, but we’ll see when the baby comes!)

New duties at the office? I can learn.

Car trouble? I’ll get through it.

Financial challenges? I’m richer than I think.

Hockey season? So far, the Flyers are in the playoffs.

Even the weather is misbehaving. I love the fall. It’s my favourite of the seasons, but this year it seems as confused as everything else, unable to shift smoothly from summer’s candy perfume and ice cream palette to the sharp scents and warm hues of autumn. I have no choice but to ride it out (and be grateful for the unexpectedly mild month we’ve enjoyed), but it’s unsettling.

And it’s not just me.

My professional peeps are going through stuff. One of my office buddies is going through bigger stuff. Family members are always dealing with all sorts of stuff. Stuff, stuff, stuff. I put the question, “What’s with all this stuff?” and the answer came back, “It’s life. It’s where we are. It’s the collective energy all around the world, the mix of love and hate, wealth and poverty, conflict and concession. It’s contrast.”

I need to reframe.

On the positive side, my niece is marrying her longtime sweetie (and he is a sweetie) in mid-October, my nephew and his wife are expecting a babe in April, Christmas is coming, and the Flyers are in the playoffs. I have a bunch of writing projects on the hob, not the usual single work in progress. How’s that for abundance? Speaking of which, I have that, too, in more ways than I can count, in love and support and laughter and health and ongoing employment with the potential for a wee pay raise once they untangle the resource issues at work … and the Flyers are in the playoffs.

I have Ter. And Nicole. And my parents and my sibs. And me. In spite of change swirling endlessly around me, I still have Ru.

Thanksgiving is a few weeks away. I’m suddenly so grateful that I fear I’ll peak before the stat holiday arrives—and that’s okay. I watched the first episode of Gotham and one line sprang out at me, a line delivered by a grown man to a little boy whose parents were killed in front of him, a line so guilelessly optimistic that it would have sounded trite if it hadn’t been so true:

There will be light.

Amen.