My jaw dropped today when I realized it had been ten years since Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast. Apparently the past decade of my life came and went faster than the puff of smoke trailing behind the Roadrunner each time he outsmarts Wyle E. Coyote.
Much in my life has changed since Katrina. I’m now staring down fifty instead of forty. My kids are catching up to me in height, and needing (or possibly wanting) less and less of my attention, too. I’ve discovered a new career, and my husband has changed jobs twice. Friends and relatives have married and/or divorced.
On a more global scale, we’ve witnessed a historic Presidential election, suffered through years of war, YouTube, FaceBook, and Google appear to be taking over the world, and the King of Pop died.
Pretty much everything has changed.
And today brought more changes to the Beck household. My eldest started high school, my youngest entered seventh grade, and I got a new editor (who I’m excited to work with, by the way). I’ll admit my kids and I began the day with a bit of anxiety about the new expectations and people we’d be partnering with this year. But happily, none of us met with disaster (not yet, anyway).
That’s the thing about change. The anticipation of the difference is usually much worse than the reality.
We’re trained, I think, to be leery of the unknown (“better the devil you know,” and other such sayings). But that fear can cause us to stagnate if we let it. And so, like I did this morning, I try to focus on the possible positive outcomes of change (new friends, new teachers, new leaf), because the thing I fear most is failing to thrive! Thriving requires growth, which in turn requires change, which means I best embrace each and every opportunity for change that comes my way.
And just because this post made me fondly remember Saturday morning Looney Tunes:
xo-Jamie