Change Is

I woke to the sound of rain. It was raining when I dropped off to sleep. The outside temperature stayed above freezing through the night, and is expected to near 50 degrees (F) today. The snow is disappearing. The ice has softened and is giving way to slush. It’ll be a wet, slushy, muddy commute today, quite different than yesterday’s icy cautious trek.

My careful commute still got me to this lovely vantage point, yesterday. Today it will look different.

Tonight will be warmer. It will be too warm for a fire in the fireplace to give comfort. There will be even less snow, and even more mud. I’m okay with all of that; I may see my Traveling Partner. 😀 It’s been weeks now, and I miss him greatly.

This morning starts in a peculiarly unscripted way. I don’t really know what is to come of the day, not even a little bit. I don’t find that it causes me any anxiety, which is a change itself, from years when the slightest mystery or deviation from plans, caused me incredible stress and anxiety. This lack of plan, this lack of expectation, it’s not even uncomfortable… I’m okay right now.

The world, too, is in a state of change. In a sense, a very real sense, pretty much nearly everything almost entirely always is in a state of change, to one extent or another. Fighting that caused me so much needless stress. Holding the awareness of ongoing change at arm’s length, trying to carve out a moment of stillness by halting change itself, and then feeling the inevitable frustration and disappointment when things did, unavoidably, change, regardless of my wishes… it was… hard. Embracing change, for me, has meant taking that first step again and again and again; being comfortably aware that change is. It has no characteristic that allows for me to avoid it, negotiate with it, prevent it, limit it, halt it… or change the thing about change that is change itself. From there, it’s all planning the Plan A, and the Plan B, and finding the sweet spot in life that allows me to accommodate change comfortably, which has typically involved not getting hung up on expectations and assumptions – or even plans.

Even today; I am hopeful I will see my Traveling Partner. I don’t “expect” it to be today. I don’t “assume” that it will be today. It may be. It may not be. There’s nothing on the calendar that is firm on that topic, as of now, and there are other things going on for both of us… so… I know he is eager to see me. I know I am eager to see him. We miss each other. Our intention is to get together at the next good opportunity, once the roads are safely navigable once again. Good enough. It allows for change to happen quite comfortably, without drama. I like that.

Today is a good day for change. (There’s no stopping change, so it’s quite nice that it’s a good day for it…) Today is a good day to be content with what is. Today is a good day to enjoy this moment, here, whatever it is, while I can. It will change, sooner or later. 🙂