Changing small things in life

Well it is 2013 and the Mayans were wrong. The world, obviously, did not end. I for one am glad. This editor has a lot more to do in life.

When your life is lived in an environment of change, the things that have always stayed the same are important. When they change, it is even harder to deal with.

I grew up moving every two or three years. This meant a new school, home, friends and experiences. While that sounds fun, it gets old after a couple moves. Making new friends is hard. I don’t care how much of a people-person or how friendly you are; it is hard to make friends in a new place on a regular basis. But you get used to it. These changes become common in your life and you get more comfortable with them. Still, the things that stay the same throughout all this are important. They are like the glue that holds your life together whilst everything else is changing.

So get rid of these constants, and your life suddenly turns upside-down. Traditions that were so important growing up don’t become less important as time goes by. But sometimes you have to be OK with getting rid of them, or at least changing them some.

My sister got married this past summer. While it was a happy occasion and we are all happy for them, it came with some future changes. Christmas, just to name one special occasion, would not be the same.

Christmastime was not always a time of joy and happiness at my house. With five kids, it’s hard to find a moment when someone is not angry or arguing with someone else. But my parents handled it well and there were some great moments and some great traditions—traditions that involved all of my family members. So take one of them out of the picture, and things are just not the same. My sister wanted to be there this year but it just didn’t work out. So we ate beef stew on Christmas Eve without her. We read “The Night Before Christmas” before bed without her. We woke up and opened our stockings on Christmas morning without her. And when we sat around the tree to open presents after putting the breakfast casserole in the oven, there was something blatantly missing.

Now there were other changes to the holidays this year, but this one affected me the most. Obviously we would not all always be together. But as the changes started to happen, it was a little harder than I expected- and this coming from a person accustomed to change.

I have always said you have to be OK with change. That doesn’t mean it is easy, but it happens no mater how much we try to stop it. So even though the end of the world didn’t happen, get used to the fact that the world is changing: in small and large ways.

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