When I announced my break from the blog two weeks ago, I didn’t realize I would still be away from home today. But I am. So I thought I’d share a quote that I am trying to embrace at the moment:

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

E. M. Forster

I am getting a first hand lesson in this right now. I’ve been visiting my parents, helping them as my father transitions from the hospital back home after a health crisis. Watching him fight to get “back to normal” has reminded me that normal is a temporary state at best.

Things are always changing.

Nature tries to remind us of the truth of this, but we insist on seeing the year as four distinct seasons instead of a long series of small changes. The days flow into one another as the sun rises and sets at slightly different times and the temperatures drift from cold to hot and back again. Snow in April isn’t winter intruding on spring. It’s just another change.

Most of the time, the changes are so small, we barely notice them, like new packaging for our favorite shampoo. Some are larger and make us realize time has passed, like a child losing a tooth or growing another inch. And some are earth-shattering, like the loss of a loved one.

I took physics. I know that the fight to keep things from changing is a losing battle, and yet I still try. Like my father, I want things to be the way they once were. I get frustrated and even angry that I’m not as strong or energetic as I used to be, but it doesn’t do me any good.

It’s much better to recognize what has changed for me and to work with it, to find a way to leverage what I have, instead of pining for what is no more. That way I can move forward into the life that is waiting for me instead of getting stuck in the irreproducible past.

Do you fight change?