Today was pretty good. Most of it was spent in front of my computer trying to get things done for a job that we needed to get out, as well as a lot of data entry of scanned sign-up lists. I think before I ever hire someone, I’m going to have them fill out a form by hand so I can check out their penmanship. It was a frustrating few hours trying to decipher handwriting.
The thing that’s been on my mind today has been the idea of change. It seems that the general consensus in today’s culture and language is that change is good. That gets said a lot. Change is good. Change is good. Sometimes I think people say it to convince themselves that it’s true.
It’s a constant in life. Things are always changing. Every day the sun comes up and says, “Good morning. Today is a new day.” New means we’ve never seen it before. It’s changed. We’ve never seen this particular day before. What does it have in store?
I think the truth is that change is neutral. I don’t think change is good or bad. It’s just something that happens. How we respond to change is the thing that can be good or bad. Even if the change is leading to things that aren’t good, we can respond in a way to redirect it or we sit and watch. If the change is going in a good direction, we have the ability to embrace it and maybe make it even better or just go with the flow and enjoy the ride. The good or the bad is up to us. I can only be responsible for my part — my actions, my responses — when it comes to change.
Today was a day of really trying to adapt to change. My days are different now. I wake up and my first thoughts are about checking my blood sugar, wondering if Brenda has gotten Star out of bed and moving yet, feeling guilty for not doing it before she did, seeing how much insulin I need to use for my morning shot, trying to figure out if there’s enough time to eat breakfast before we have our family devotions or if I need to wait until after, doing the math in my head about what time I can eat if I take my shot now, and how are my choices right now going to affect me in one hour? Or two hours?
My whole day feels like it’s wrapped around the consequences of these new changes. Each meal, everything I write down that I ate, every number I record, each app I open to track it all, every time I grab my backpack because it now carries the items I need to monitor my health — they’re all based on the fact that life includes change. Without knowing it, Brenda hammered the point home by suggesting we rearrange our bedroom. Seriously? Aren’t there enough changes going on?
So we rearranged the bedroom. Star even pitched in and helped. All of the things that I knew, instinctively, where they were are now moved. The paths that were able to be walked in the dark because they had become known have moved and now require thought to navigate. The ritual of having a space to put my money clip, rings, and things I carry in my pockets is now different. Does any of this matter? In the big scheme of things is it really that important that my dresser is on the left side of the room instead of the right? Are these the things that I want on my tombstone as the issues I cared about? “Scott Henwood. Husband, Father, and, man, did he need his dresser on the right hand side of the room.”
I’m doing my best to adapt to the changes. It’ll come together. I have a good team around me. I’m not the only one going through these changes. It’s affecting my entire family — even the dog spits out the celery she’s handed wondering what happened to the good stuff.
For the times that any of us fail to do well, though, there’s grace. I first encountered a little tradition that Brenda started with Star a few months ago. They had gotten into a little issue between them, and I walked in at the end of it. I didn’t hear anything about what the issue was, but I saw the two of them holding each other and jumping up and down while rotating in a circle saying out loud, “Hug it away, hug it away, hug it away.” It was funny and touching and profound all at the same time. They were laughing, and I began to laugh with them. A moment that could have been a negative experience was now going to be remembered with laughter, love, and joy as they “hugged it away.”
One of the most meaningful gifts I received this Christmas was actually a gift for both Brenda and me. It was a gift from my parents — a piece of artwork. When they gave it to us my mom said, “When I read this it made me think of the way the two of you live your lives.” It says:
In this house we do second chances.
we do grace,
we do real,
we do mistakes,
we do I'm sorrys,
we do hugs,
we do family,
we do love.
Because of the way our kitchen is arranged, it hangs above the garbage can. It wasn’t intentional for it to be above the garbage, but in some ways it symbolizes for me all the stuff that falls out of our lives when we hold on to this perspective. If we can live like this, all the junk goes in the garbage can, and we can move on to better places in our souls and in our lives.
Brenda and I talked that night about the art piece and what Ma said to us. I don’t think we could have received a nicer compliment. We try our hardest to live like this. It’s a lot of work. We aren’t perfect at it, but we do our best. And for those times that we don’t get it right — those times where our response to change isn’t good — we can always just hug it away.