Changes

In the world of technology, change is constant. You have to change your settings every month, it seems, to accommodate an "upgrade" that promises to improve your ability to complete tasks. Of course, there's that learning curve thing ... programmers seem to forget about that.

But really, all life is change. Some are huge: my sister's life from a year ago to today, or my cousin Sherry's for the same period. Some are very small: sparrows on the back porch yesterday morning, or the lushness of the grass after a frost.

We humans are built for flexibility, to be able to change course in midstream, to stop on a dime and do a 180 degree turn. It gets harder as you get older; you want the stream to be slower and warmer, the path to be smoother. We can still change, but it's more difficult and irksome; and in the last quarter of life is when we most need to.

We can take the lesson from the trees: the ones that can bend survive the storms.

Old companions can help. People who remember you as young can help keep you young. Maybe that's why we treasure time with those who knew us in the "good old days." Those memories warm old bones and remind us of the day we swam all the way out to the floating dock.

New friends help too. Being around young, vibrant people can be restoring and refreshing - right up until it's tiresome and annoying! :)

It's the curse of the "retirement community" or the "old folks home" - if you're only around the elderly and ill, you feel more elderly and ill.

Some people - I think I'm one, sometimes - welcome change, and greet a new experience as a joyful thing. I don't know if you can learn to do that; if I could, I'd teach it to everyone I love!

Charles Dickens said, "The important thing is this: to be ready at any moment to sacrifice what you are for what you could become."

Words to live by, I think. But I sure wish they'd quit changing Facebook!