Change happens. Sometimes it’s for the better. Sometimes it’s for the worst. And often times it falls somewhere between the two. Actually, most of times it’s bittersweet. Change is an acquired taste. Some people seem to go for it often and others shy away from it. Some people welcome change with open arms and adapt well to it while others seem to spiral out of control and lose themselves for awhile when they were hit with what felt like a tornado of change. But any which way, change happens.

So which is better? Knowing that the change is going to happen or just being hit with it all of a sudden. On the one hand, you can slowly adapt. You can make the change a little less scary by going little by little. You get time to wrap your head around what is about to happen. But then again, time can also be the enemy in situations like that. Time to think about this upcoming change can be detrimental to your mental health. You can develop anxiety about it. You can go into a depression thinking about the last times you’ll be doing something a certain way. So many pluses and minuses to look at on this pro/con list. And then you have the other hand. The unexpected change hand. The “I just woke up one day and the world was different” hand. This route throws you directly into the eye of the storm. No time to change little by little till you finally reach the actual depth of the change. You are now in the deep end of the pool and you can either sink or swim. You are now faced with many of the same cons of the slow change list plus some. But when you quit looking at the negatives, quick, overnight changes can be good too. You get to now see how strong you actually are (though you never anticipated that this is how you were going to find out…). There is no mental note “last times” that you did something though you can often recall them anyways. There is often times no decision making is needed or its an easy one to make. And when you finally come out of that storm of change, after you came eye to eye with that monster, and after the dust settles, you can now see with clarity what you lost because of that change as well as what you gained. And I promise you that your gain epiphany will come. It might not be today, or tomorrow, or next week. It might be after the next storm or little by little change. But you will see it. Whether it is an angel up in heaven or you finding your calling. It. Will. Come.

So I guess we never chose which is better. It’s because neither is better. Both have the bitter parts and both have the sweet parts. And like I said before, it’s an acquired taste. Some people prefer to have one small piece of dark chocolate every day and others prefer to eat one large candy bar in one sitting and then be set for awhile. It’s all about preference, though we hardly get to choose how change comes. I prefer that when it comes to the big stuff, throw me into the storm. I have always said that I’m glad I just woke up without my leg. That it was life or limb. That it was an easy decision to make in a very hard situation. That there was no suffering through the idea of the change or even the change itself. Only adapting. I was thrown into the deep end and had to learn to swim one legged. And that’s how I prefer the big changes. But the little changes, the ones that are more frequent and you sometimes get a choice in, those are the ones I like to anticipate. I like to makes plans and arrangements for these changes. I like to consider all my options and try them out ahead of time. I like having time and knowing that I have the time beforehand. These things make me feel like I have a little bit of control. Like as long as I am prepared to the best of my ability then that this change will either be good for me and my family or it will have a silver lining. And while you can’t control the change, you can often control the way you see it.

Weird isn’t it? How change is often out of our control when you look at the little details but we can have personal presences of how it comes about? With that being said, I’ve encountered some changes myself. I’ve changed my place of employment.And though I will miss everyone at Mercer Health and I could not have asked for a better place of employment during some of the most trying times in my life thus far, this change was for the better. This change brought me closer to home, closer to my career path, and closer to knowing where I am meant to be. I jumped into the deep end again but this time I took the leap instead of being thrown in. This change has lit a fire inside that I can’t wait to see how much light it brings to myself and my family.

So tonight let’s the embrace the change we can and can not control. May we learn to weather the storm with just the shirt on our backs and the people beside us. May we always learn to swim no matter how deep we were thrown in despite our physical and mental limitations. And may we come to realize and accept that change happens. That no one gets through this world in one piece. And that the cracks and breaks and signs of wear help that are us, makes us who we are. We are a door of ever revolving change. So keep going.

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