Transformation

I talk about a lot of things on this blog, but I try not to talk about things that are too personal.

This past year has been one big change after another, and as hard as it sometimes was, I tried to keep focused on the fact that “this too shall pass.” I’m not completely there yet, but I’m much much closer.

Over the weekend I did something that closed the door on a long chapter of my life. I always note when things come full circle, and this truly did. (Sorry for being vague, but I don’t want to get into it publicly. Just trust it’s good.) Five minutes after this realization, I came across this magnet:

It’s not often I find a quote that fits a stage in my life at the EXACT MOMENT it’s happening.

Has this ever happened to you?

21 Comments

  1. All the time.

    Here’s just one. Many years ago, I was working in a restaurant, which got unexpectedly busy, and I was run off my feet. My last customer for the night left me a poem which began…

    For every departure, there is an arrival.
    It’s the law of the axe, whose handle was a tree.

    It ended with a line about the light from a star traveling billions of miles, just to comfort us now.

    Not 30 seconds after I read it, I received the phone call telling me my father had died.

  2. When I made my first “big” move to another state as young married mom and for the first time had no old friends or family around me — I was looking at cards in a Hallmark store and saw a Mary Engelbreit card with “Bloom Where You’re Planted.” I bought it – and It has been my mantra ever since. Good thing too, since there were 5 interstate moves in the next 10 years.

  3. Back in HS after attending a college fair, I threw out 99% of the applications & pamphlets I was given. A week later I got a personal letter mailed to me by a college rep who was so impressed from speaking with me that she felt compelled to write & asked me to apply. I had thrown out the application and ended up printing it out on recycled printer paper and it was a form on their website that looked like a typewriter had made it (not a PDF). It looked like crap.

    Fast forward 2 months, I was told to come visit. The minute I stepped out of the car and saw the campus I knew that’s where I needed to be. Since then, over 10 years later, my circle of friends that I met there have become the family I didn’t know I had or needed.

    • Aaron, I’ve often pondered how different my life would be had I gone to the college I originally wanted to attend. It’s crazy how much one decision truly affects the rest of your life. I’m glad you made the right one.

  4. When I retired from the Air Force, I had this feeling. That’s a transformative life change (having done that for 22 years). However, what you don’t realize, in many ways, is what’s lifted from your shoulders when you make a transformation like that. There are new challenges, but they are not the old challenges, so tackling them becomes more adventure than rut. To that end, I’ve more and more become a big believer in action, even with the little things. That is, DOING something rather than sitting and rhumenating on somethings. I find that one action leads to another leads to another. And in each, the thing that was a caterpillar changes and becomes a butterfly. Some weeks, I get a whole field full of them. Corny, but true.

    • I definitely felt the past lifted off my shoulders. I didn’t expect it to be such a physical reaction, but it was. I agree with you 100% on taking action. So much of my time in Mexico was spent waiting that I’m determined not to do that anymore. I put it in my head that I can make things happen for myself, and they finally seem to be.

  5. Melissa (The Mule)

    You are awesomesauce with a cherry on top. You are strong. You are a great friend to people you’ve never even met. Transformation is a part of us every day. You’re probably better at it than you think. Actually, I think you seem to realize this now.

    I love quotes like the one you found. And I am a firm believer in signs that let you know you are doing the right thing.

    My favorite: my first day subbing. I was nervous and just wanted to get through the day without screwing up. One of the kids, who had been giving me trouble most of the day (and I ended up talking to him on the playground: he owed me time) left at the end and turned before walking out, “You’re a pretty cool teacher.”

    Yeah, that made my day.

    • Aww, Mel, thanks. And I really want to meet the mule one of these days. 😛

      That’s so wonderful that student said that to you. People often have no way of knowing how much a small word of kindness can affect others, which is why I try to make it a point to do that. This doesn’t completely compare, but say, for example, that I really like a stranger’s dress, I’ll tell her. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like getting compliments. 🙂

      And I believe that you’re a pretty cool teacher.

  6. This happens to me frequently, especially of late, and I fully believe in the power of such timely messages. They are meant to be, right then, when we most need them.

    Very cool.

    Thinking of you!

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