These Slow and Steady Changes

Everyone knows that change can happen in the tiniest split-hair of a second.  Life can fracture that fast.

My house overlooks a major thoroughfare; the constant rumble of traffic has melted into semi-white noise over the two years I've lived here.  On fairly regular occasion, the red scream of a siren rips that white noise apart, reminding me that there are people hurting.  Loved ones are in fear.

My classroom, too, sits on a road that houses a hospital on its opposite end.  I often tell my students to send the person in the ambulance a positive thought or two.  These are the reminders of how quickly all can change.

Life itself, too, sometimes becomes white noise.  We rumble along on its (fingers crossed) lengthy thoroughfare, zombie-ing ourselves from one commitment to another, waiting for some sort of siren-- hopefully (fingers crossed) positive--to rip the monotony apart.  Perhaps this is American discontent.  The rat-on-the-wheel-running-toward-something-bigger-and-(fingers crossed)-better-phenomenon.  Only, we find that the wheel doesn't stop until we decide to stop chasing the bigger and better and be (fingers crossed) content with what we have.

These siren-ous moments are not the ones I set out to write about today.  In actuality, today I was struck about the subtle changes in life.  The ones that creep rather than pierce.

We've all been there.  The pounds that slowly layer themselves on so painstakingly slowly that we just can't understand how we've gained twenty pounds; for men (and some women) the few hairs that fall out every day, seemingly no big deal until suddenly the hairline looks more like it's low tide than high;  the resentment that drips poison into our thoughts about our partners and loved ones, a build up of arsenic that mummifies these relationships and numbs us to the stalemate at which we've arrived.

For me, these slow and steady changes center most around what I used to be able to do and no longer can.  When I was little, I used to be able to climb a jungle gym.  Even make it to the top.  Today, I would not even make it up the bottom rung.  I used to be able to climb every curb, even the Mt. Everests of curbs.  Today, for most curbs, I need to lean on the hood of a car (sorry for the fingerprints) or grab the nearest pole to help hoist me up.  I used to be able to climb steep hills, slowly but surely reaching the top.  Today, I would need something to lean on, an arm or a railing or some day (maybe) a cane.  I used to be able to sit on the floor and get up with relative ease.  Today, I need a couch or a chair to put the top half of my body in while I inch my legs into standing position, looking like a knock-kneed, newborn giraffe.

I don't remember the gap years.  How I got from there to here.

I think these slow and steady changes are God's way of ripping off the band-aid slowly.  So it doesn't hurt as much.  So that by the time we arrive on this side of the gap, we don't feel like something has been stolen from us.  We, in fact, don't really miss what we once had.

In light of all of the abilities I've lost, it's a damn good thing there are so many things I do so much better than ever I did before--like accepting and forgiving and hoping and understanding and loving.

(Who cares about climbing an ol' jungle gym anyway?)