changes

Changes come all the time. I realise this. I fight them but I can't stop them. I haven't learned to sit back serenely and let change happen without kicking and screaming. WIthout crying. Without hurting. Without the angst. Without the fury at life, the universe, and everything.

We say goodbyes, hellos, leave familiar places to walk unfamiliar paths. Life changes - todays plenty is left for a tomorrow of lack. Todays pain is replaced by joy. The passions we have now might become the indifference of next year. The indifferences of this year might become the passions of the next. Our bodies change, our hearts and minds change. We change; I know this. Like I know the palm of my hand. It is familiar. Known. Our very lives can change in the tick of a second.

Someone I know says 'change is baaad'. it is like the sky has fallen on his head when he is confronted with throwing out decades of old magazines piled up in a study! Like Chicken Little and the Acorn. It is a calamity. Change is baaaad.

But it happens. Like the sun rising the next day. Like rain during the monsoons (definitely not like rain in UK which is unpredictable). Change arriving is like breathing - regular, even, inevitable. Non-negotiable.

Perhaps change is inevitable, regular, even. Non-negotiable.

But what if, knowing change is coming, you intervene to move it forwards. To enhance it.

Like the changes that come into a marriage.
When children arrive into the twoness of a couple, and the dynamic of two, the intimate dynamic of one to one, now become a dynamic of many facets of many 'people'. I have seen the change become a source of destruction of the intimacy of the relationship. Couples relate to each other as the complementing 'parent' and not as the lover they once knew. Some even start calling the spouse 'mama' or 'dad'. The intricate nuances of intimacy, lovering, mystery are gone. Sometimes growing up - when married, makes people grow in different directions - and become different people. Does that mean the love ends, the dynamic dies, the joy fizzles out. I suspect if you dislike what the other is growing into - then the marriage is doomed. But still one can grow together - guarding the love and the dynamic, making choices that will not pull apart and damage. I suspect it takes the 'fighting change' policy to guard against growing apart. Maybe? Maybe one has to fight for the 'us' while giving space for the 'you' and 'me'.

Like the changes that buffet a friendship
Friendship has the winds of weather blowing against it. The winds of distancing, conflict, betrayal, disagreement, hurt. Negotiating this is difficult - I have no answers. I do not know if there is some way a friendship can be saved, and the fact is I have lost friends over the years.
From all of the above.
For unlike marriage, friendships are fluid - they come and go at different periods of ones' life. Some just do not last, even if you scream and kick violently to keep them. After all, unlike a marriage vow, a commitment to love, friendship has no vows or promises. It can end as and when required by either party. And so it does.

Sometimes it has been a betrayal that, despite all efforts to fight it, has brought a subtle change. Sometimes it has been a deep hurt that somehow leaves scars that do not fade with time, and have a slight tinge of pain ever after.
Sometimes levels of conflict and disagreement lead to a parting of ways. Abrupt, unexplained, knife sharp ends.
Sometimes it has been distance - where lives move in such varied directions there is nothing to pick up. That being said, I must add that distance can sometimes have no bearing on the depth of a friendship. I just met up with a lifetime friend with whom I pick up at any any time; we talk freely, intimately, honestly. But that is very rare, and I know it. He and I both know it and cherish it. But we have weathered many changes - of distance, growing, occasional disagreement. And the root of its survival is a deep love and trust in each other. We continue to like each other and the people we become.

Change will come. I know that.
I just hope I will have the grace and wisdom to know when to fight it, when to guard it and when to let it blow its weathering winds over my soul and submit to its ravages with serenity and peace.