Step, Step, Fall--Step, Step, FLY

"Change is the essence of life; be willing to surrender who you are, for what you could become." --Anonymous

The first steps towards anything are almost always the most difficult. I remember watching my daughters go from crawling to walking--grab on to something sturdy, pull yourself up, hold yourself steady and test out this new way of getting around, upright, on two legs! Lots of falling down, trying again, and eventually those little legs move from an unsteady gait into full-on running--usually in search of the next "big" thing.

It is a great metaphor for how we approach life--choosing or changing a career, moving to a new location, making friends...all of these are difficult for me. I'm not good with change. It makes me uncomfortable, discombobulated, and there are always those doubts in my mind: "What if I make a mistake?"; "What if I can't cut it?"; "What if I'm not good enough, or just not enough?". One of the joys of being in my forties is that those doubts are more like an annoying whisper in my ear, as opposed to the bellowing roar they were in my youth. Through life-experience, I have also learned that change is good for me. I know people who get stuck...stuck in one kind of rut or another and stay there indefinitely. Heck, I've been a guest of those ruts before, too. Staying in them is much easier and more familiar than pulling yourself OUT. We sit and complain about the things we hate, the things we wish for, from the safety of our little rut, and never have to exert the energy to take the risk of changing it; and it IS a risk.

For me, probably for many, this is an extremely unhealthy way to live, so when I find myself in that place, static, unchanging, getting out of it as painlessly as possible is essential! I laugh at typing, seeing that word, "painlessly", because so often change comes with its share of hurts. I couldn't have recovered from some of those hurts that were so intense they blinded me and brought me to my knees, had it not been for the "sturdy things" I had to hold on to, people in my life who've steadfastly stood by me, holding on through every storm, any fall. They held me until I was steady again, until I got back up and kept walking...and now look at me learning to fly!

*Image from sheknows.com.

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