Arriving at Change

Everything changes.  Every second, every minute something is changing whether it is for the better or for the worst and it's my job to know how to adapt to it.  Change is something that doesn't come easy for me.  Changes in my life are things I fight and I resist them constantly. What I have today may become what I had tomorrow.  Things change, often spontaneously.  People and circumstances come and go.  My life didn't stop when I slipped into depression after He left and everything in my life changed.  It moved rapidly and rushed from calm to chaos in a matter of seconds.

Sometimes the shortest split second in time changes the direction of our lives. He might have thought his seemingly innocuous event didn't rattle my whole world. But it took my entire life and swiveled it and flipped it upside down on the strength of that unpredictable event.  What was mine?  The day he uttered the words, "I'm in love with her."

However bad that situation was then and how I felt about it, it changed.   I have come to realize that every ending is the beginning of something else.  Every exit is an entry somewhere else.  Sometimes life closes doors because it’s time to move forward.  And that’s a good thing because I probably wouldn't move unless circumstances forced me to.  My best lessons were learned at the worst times and from the worst points in my life.  From that, though, I have learned so much about myself and about how much I have changed as a person from two years ago when I found out about the affair and filed for divorce to the months after and the angry person I was as I dealt with the new life I was living.  Then the year and a half I spent completely removed from myself as I fought tooth and nail to get my marital settlement.  And, now in the last four months I have changed again.

I'm not the same person I was four months ago, last month, or even a week ago.  In order to change and maintain peace and serenity in my life, I had to find the strength to laugh every day.  I had to find it in myself to make others smile too.  I had to stop stressing over things I couldn't change.  I had to  live simply, love generously, speak truthfully, work diligently.  And even if I fall short, I keep going because every moment gives me a new beginning and a new ending.  I get a second chance, every second.  I just have to take it and make the best of it.  I wasn't making the best of my second chances.  I was taking them for granted.  I often felt like quitting, but I had to remember that sometimes things have to go very wrong before they can be right.  I had to live through my very worst, to arrive at my very best.