Reluctantly Embracing Change

In yoga this morning, the instructor worked to sell us on the value of embracing change, of not getting too comfortable with the status quo.

I can usually follow along with her guidance, but this time, I rebelled.

I. Have had enough of change. 

When I picture myself trying to embrace it, the clearest image which comes to mind has my hands encircling its neck - and I'm pretty sure that's not the embrace she had in mind.  

I'm tired of getting older, of waking up to play the game of "what hurts the most this morning?" Of hearing that an aggressive cancer has arrived in the life of this friend, that another is in the hospital with pancreatitis. I want myself and my people to be OK. You know, like we used to be, back in the golden olden days.

What, may I ask, is so wrong with being comfortably nestled within the status quo? I rather like the image of snuggling in under my soft, fuzzy, white blanket on the couch, and letting the world go along its merry way without me. 

Pause. Regroup.

Would I REALLY be happy there? Which status quo am I trying to maintain?

I think my friends of both political stripes would agree we've had enough of the acrimony dividing our country. I don't want this state of affairs to continue as is. It feels yucky.

My kids? They have never gone along with my wish to stop time and hold onto the precious moments. It seems they have lives they want to live, which involves continuing to change and grow. And I'd be tired of paying tuition by now anyways.

My health? Not there, either. I'm just now six months out of surgery, and for the first time in over a year, have nothing on the books designed to knock me off my feet again. I can finally continue to heal and not have it be undone. I do want to continue to heal.

How about the weather? Nope. Even there I can embrace change. It's been unseasonably hot (which, just perhaps, may account for part of my grumpy mood). I will welcome autumn's gray rain when it arrives in town later this week.

Perhaps the trick here is to - once again - remind myself to work to be present in the moment I am in now. Here. Today. 

Change isn't the enemy any more than cancer is the enemy. The enemy is the force tempting me to miss the beauty of the now because I'm focusing on an imagined ideal better world which was, or perhaps, is to come.

Stop. Breathe. Be here, now.