We’ve just fetched my son home from university, and have been trying to squeeze a quart into a pint pot – successfully, I might add – and it got me to thinking about life changes and how things can pootle along for a long time without anything happening, and then suddenly, one day things are different.

Obviously, when thinking about one’s offspring, the difference a day (or an evening!!) brings is huge!  Then there is the day of the birth – a momentous occasion.  Then the first day of school, then the first exam.  Eventually it’s the day of going off to university, or leaving home.  One day, everything is as normal, the next the way you look at the world has changed. 

It’s one of the wonderful parts of being human that you can decide how you want to approach the demands and challenges of change.  You can choose to regard change as a chance to do things differently, or to experience change in a positive way, or you can choose to fight it or regret it.  I’ve done both, but once I realised that it is up to me how to face change, I’ve tried to view even things I’m not happy about as a chance to turn things around, or make a new start, or approach things in a different way.  That way, I feel that I have a modicum of control over how events affect me, whether that’s just an illusion or not.  I feel calmer, more reflective, able to see positive outcomes or to accept that something positive might come out of something that seems really negative at the time.

In these economically challenging times, many people are having to face change that they don’t want.  I feel glad that I decided to become self-employed.  At least I can’t get the sack!!  But we all have to face the challenges that the economy throws at us, and we can choose how to do that.  I have been made redundant in the past, so I know how it feels.  At the time I was devastated, but then you have to look at your strengths and your weaknesses, and try to think broadly about what you can do, and what you like to do.  You have to decide whether you will take a menial job just to keep the money coming in whilst looking for something more suited to your talents, or whether to retrain to do something completely different.  You have to face some really difficult decisions such as possibly losing your house.  But even then things can work out to be better than you imagined.

 A friend found herself facing bankruptcy, not through her own devices, but thanks to the profligacy of her estranged husband.  It could have been devastating with two small children, but she faced it in a positive way, and came out of it with no more debts, and able to start again.  She is in a wonderful rented cottage, and is now far happier having down-sized and lost a lot of clutter!  She now wonders why she didn’t do that much earlier. 

I know it’s not always possible to come out of things smelling of roses, but our attitude to change really does help to promote a successful and acceptable result.  Now I’ve written this, I’m waiting for the heavens to open and adversity to strike!!  If it does, I’ll try to keep smiling and positive!  After all, out of the death of a wonderful lady came the chance to do something different in my life, and that changed my life from music to weaving!