Mom's spaghetti

I embrace the possibilities of change

When I was about 5 years old my parents went on a trip to Hawaii.  I was not invited.  To either spread the joy, or disperse the trouble, my 4 siblings and I were split up and sent to the homes of various family and friends.  I wanted to stay with my grandparents but ended up at a neighbor's house at the other end of the block.  

I do not have a great many childhood memories at that age but I do remember not liking the week I spent away from home.  Everything at the neighbors house was different.  They interacted differently than at my house and worst of all they ate different food.  I refused to eat anything that they fixed except for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  After multiple unsuccessful attempts to get me to eat anything else I was asked what food I liked.  "Spaghetti," I announced.  That night they fixed spaghetti for dinner and after one bite I declared, "this doesn't taste like my mom's spaghetti," and declined to eat anymore of the foreign noodles and sauce that had been place before me.  I was not open to a change in routine, environment and especially not my diet.  

I have since come to realize the constant prospect of change in my life.  Change comes even if I fight against it.  Rather than attempting to halt the inevitable I will instead choose how I respond to it.  I will avoid clinging so tightly to the past that I leave claw marks behind, I will instead see the possibilities that each change can bring.  Change is part of the growth and learning process and if I embrace it's possibilities each movement and shift in my life becomes not an end, but a new beginning brimming with possibilities.  One of those possibilities is the opportunity to take on new challenges and to stretch myself.  I am capable of learning and growing from the changes in my life if I see them as a necessary and natural part of the process that can help me reach my full potential.  

 All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.  ~Ellen Glasgow