While growing up, I had this perfect image in my head of what my future would be like. It's the future a lot of LDS girls dream of having: marrying a rich, handsome, and spiritually strong husband in the temple by age 21 and getting right to work at being a stay-at-home mom.
In hindsight, it's somewhat amusing to note how few things over the past 10 years have turned out the way I thought they would. All that meticulous planning and preparation doesn't amount to much when life rears its ugly head and forces the dreaded "C" word.
Once again I've found myself in a situation I didn't see coming, a change I really didn't want to happen unless it was on my own terms. Silly me. I should know by now that life takes great pleasure in taking these "terms" and tossing them over cliffs into the turbulent waters below rather than carving them into stone and treating it like a sacred artifact.
But the thing that annoys me most is that the enemy--Change--isn't actually the horned bad guy I like to envision him as. I put a lot of energy into hating Change (though most of the hate comes naturally), but it seems like every time Change comes along, he wins the I'm-righter-than-you-are argument.
And then things have a way of working out. Even worse, I find myself praising Change for forcing me into situations I never would have put myself in, allowing me to learn, stretch, and grow, in turn making me a better, stronger, more empathetic person. It galls me to admit that my life has been enriched by Change, that some of the greatest blessings I have come from the thing I consider my enemy.
So in the end everybody wins, even if some of us incur considerable losses along the way. Just once, though, I'd like to punch Change's smug little face. That'll even out the playing field a bit.
I sort of concur with everything in this post. Change can be a nasty bugger. No matter how much one inoculates through repetition, he comes and infects with something new.
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