"Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity." — Gilda Radner

I have been thinking a lot about change in the last couple of weeks.  I was asked to come spend the morning with a group of educator's participating in the Summer Institute of the Oregon Writer's Project.  The task given to me was to share some of my experiences supporting teachers as they explore ways to improve their teaching of writing.  I was only given 45 minutes which is barely enough time to even get started, so as I was looking at my mess of a brainstorm a theme started to emerge. That theme...change.

The 45 minutes came and went quicker than any of us would have liked.  I raced home to relieve my dear friend that had willingly watched Taelin while I was gone and for the most part, my morning's discussion faded into the background of my day.  

But for some reason, change has been on my mind since.  There are some changes that we actively seek out in our life.  Among these could be big changes such as a marriage, a death in the family, a career move, or the decision to have a child.  Then there are those changes that are smaller in scale like parking further away so you can walk more or switching from 2% milk to 1%.  

Those small changes usually are things we have control over.  They are usually decided by us for a specific reason.  Maybe that is part of the reason I would consider some of them small.  I suppose we decide them because we want something to be different than it is (change) and we go about adjusting to our decision.  Most of the time this kind of change is fairly painless.  Unfortunately, this is not the kind of change that has had my attention lately.

My thoughts have been more around those big changes.  First, I suppose it is important to think about how these changes come about.  Not too unlike those small changes, often times the big changes in our life are a result of a conscious decision on our part.  For instance, I don't know too many people that haven't gotten married on purpose. Many times, people decide to have a child or buy a house or get a new job.  Again, when these changes come about there is a time of adjustment that is necessary but most of the time the issues that arise can be thought up ahead of time and expected.  I realize that isn't always true, but most of the time it is.  

But what about those times that the change isn't chosen by us?  Joe certainly didn't ask for his dad to die and that has changed our lives forever.  I have more friends than I care to think about all at once that have lost the jobs they love, and they certainly didn't ask for that to happen either.  But even though those changes weren't asked for, they are the reality. These kind of changes I think are a lot more difficult to manage.  They are out of our control and most of the time not what we have planned out in our "perfect ending".

This then leads me to my next thought of how we handle the change in our life...big or small, expected or not. Because it is always easier to think about others and their change than the change in our own lives, my thoughts have been with the people in my life .  Here are some things I have noticed...

1. Big unwanted change understandably breeds fear or anger (or a varying combination of them both).  

2. Sometimes even though our head knows one thing, our heart feels something entirely different.  

3. Life is not fair...and that sucks.

I think about my friends that are facing a much different fall than they expected and wonder how they will do with the change in their life.  They will each have their own way of managing that change.  Is there a "right" way to do it?  Probably not. I think about how my own family has dealt with the change in our lives since John's death...not much is the same. There are probably some not-so-great ways to manage the change in our life, and that probably isn't the same from person to person either.  I am in awe of my family and friends as they change through the tears and the pain to make the best of what is out of their control.

I would hope that for myself, that I can think about not only the catalyst and the result of the changes in my life, but all those in between moments too. I don't know if I will ever reach the place where I can hope for "Delicious Ambiguity" in my life...I might be little too type A for that.  I hope as I navigate each change in my life, that I learn from the last one how to do it with even a little more grace and flexibilitythan the time before.  I can hope that my daughter, my husband and my friends can think of me as someone that does make the best of things even when they don't turn out their way.  One thing I know for sure....in my lifetime I will certainly have enough opportunity, I suppose it just lands on me to take advantage of it.