Change Happens

Like it or not, things change.  People change.  Places change.  Lives are altered in split seconds, by bad decisions, by non-decisions… by simple little twists of timing.

Two weeks from tonight, the Expert and I are going to be eating a carbed-up meal, hydrating like crazy, and preparing to sleep on the night before our big race…. a huge (yet conscious and hardworking) change from a year ago.  (Scary, any way I cut it.  But also exciting.)

I just returned from a quick trip to Savannah to see my parents and their home for the first time since the fire.

On the outside, the part of the house untouched by the fire looks the same.

But the fire portions are horrible.  Rough… but seemingly surmountable.  Like maybe the pain is just on the outside, quarantined to the exterior.

But once the door is opened, an entire foreign mess opened up.  The inside of the house is broken and bare, having been gutted, stripped and pieces of a family history removed.  The house that my mom and dad “built” over the past two decades….reduced to wood, beams and a few scraps of random piles.

That’s a huge (yet unwelcomed) change.

Still, in the mess of it all… the rebuilding plans are revealing the beautiful house that will be.  The months ahead are going to be full of hassle and headaches and sadness.  But the end result is going to be nothing short of blessed, miraculous and beautiful.  My parents are going to have a freshly painted, lovely home that they deserve. I am sad and happy for them at the same time.

Change happens.  Slow and fast, welcomed and not.  Purposeful, or blindsided.  Doesn’t matter.  Somehow change will seek us out, point its finger and shout “your turn.”

The end result?  To be determined…. but at least it’s interesting.