Hold on Tight at Your Own Peril

Change happens.

Sometimes it happens all at once with devastating strength. A diagnosis or a loss appear out of nowhere.

Other times it is more gradual. I see it out of the corner of my eye but choose to put on blinders. I hear it coming but choose to crank up the noise around me, so I don’t have to pay attention.

I know it well. Denying change feels like the right thing to do at first.

I sit there feeling the winds of change as an uncomfortable draft at my feet. I shudder and reach for thicker socks. The gusts of transformation then climb up my legs and a general sense of unease fill me.

I get up as the winds outside get stronger. I close the door tightly only to have a window blow open. I shut the window and tighten the hatch, and watch it blow out moments later. I close the storm shutters and board them up only to feel the house shake as cracks form in the walls.

The longer I deny the winds of metamorphosis, the stronger they get until gale-force hurricanes lift the roof over my head and the walls crumple around me.

Now I’m alone and unprotected in a tempest. Things are flying around me and there is no safety. I find a ditch, flatten myself on the earth. I cower. I lie there with my hands around my head to protect it.

Regret…