Saturday, August 31, 2013

Transformation, Part 1

I've been thinking a lot about change, obviously.

Some friends and I watched our wedding videos last night. I don't have a wedding video, so I brought my wedding album.

Some observations:

What was up with those puffy sleeves?
And David's tinted glasses?
Why does every bride now have hair and make up done professionally? How did it morph into that?
And also along these lines, has Pinterest changed our expectations of weddings forever? Does every bride now feel like they have to have a million perfect details (and spend a million dollars) to have a lovely wedding?
And then, of course, no bridesmaids' dresses EVER look good a few years down the road.
And who thought it should be legal to allow two babies to get married? I look like I just walked out of my sophomore year of high school.

I looked at the pictures of the two of us, twenty-two years ago, and decided that this growing up and growing older and changing is just fine. I have more sense of the rightness of the turning of the world, of the cycles that happen without intention, just because it is how it is to live within the constraints of time.

My sweet brother, Kurt, and his exceptional wife, Ashleigh, had a baby yesterday. My heart has been so full of love for them. It is no longer my time to bring sweet, innocent, beautiful babies into this world. I have new roles, new paths, new responsibilities. What a joy it is to watch others step into that place and have those same sometimes (often) overwhelming experiences. They are changed through them. They are deepened, pushed, stretched. Changed.

I want to spend more time thinking about the changes that can happen WITH intention. I've been studying transformation. I've been thinking about who I am now, who I was earlier, and who I would like to become. I've been thinking about transformation within our family, as well. As I come up with more coherent thoughts , I'll probably share some of them here.

Because I still have to write fifteen minutes a day, dontcha know?

1 comment:

Megan Goates said...

I love that line from Stevie Nick's (and now the Dixie Chicks) song Landslide that says, "Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life?" I like the idea of transformation. It is bittersweet, but for my family anyway, it is a blessing to move forward and to put difficult seasons behind us. I look forward to reading about your transformation.