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Change
Filed under FooSep 19Through facebook, I recently got in touch with one of my friends from high school.
Red in the head.Yes. I know it is shocking. I actually did have a friend in high school.
Anyway, talking to her got me to thinking a lot about change and how I always struggle with it. Yes, I realize the only thing that really stays the same is the fact that things change, but for some reason, I fight change. I stay in relationships long after they have gone sour. I try desperately to put humpty back together long after the pieces are ground into dust.
Even small changes are a big deal to me. Like hair color. But more on that later.
My friend Angela, on the other hand, has always sailed through change. It’s something I’ve always admired about her. She changes hair colors so often that her three kids have never seen her real color in their entire lives. If she had the day planned a certain way and things change at the last minute, she doesn’t have a crisis over it, she just sails through it. Sort of like a chameleon who changes colors to fit the landscape, she changes as she needs to to fit her environment.
Perhaps it is her artistic nature that causes her to want change. I remember when we were growing up, she was always drawing something in class, either for an art project or just in the margins of her notebook. She wore what she wanted, said what she said, and if you liked it, fine, and if not, ok too.
But it wasn’t just her flexibility I admired, it was also her independence. She never seemed to give a damn what others said about her.
I spoke to her about what she has done since high school. After two failed marriages, she finally found her true love — who happened to be a friend to her all along.
And for some reason, I admire the fact that she has two failed marriages. I don’t see the two failed marriages as a failure, I see that in her life, she has always been true to herself, and she followed her heart, and when something went wrong, she changed her life and moved on. In other words, she didn’t stay stuck in a failed marriage, she recognized it wasn’t working and believed enough in herself to get out of it.
She lived. And maybe she has some battle scars from it, but she really lived.
She showed me a picture of her and her beloved that she took on a recent ‘naked bike ride’ to the desert in Utah and she was the most happy and beautiful that I’d ever seen. (Yes Bill, the naked parts were out of camera shot.) I never would have thought of taking a bike ride to be with nature in the buff, but can totally understand how she’d be comfortable with herself enough to do it.
She follows her heart. And sometimes, the path she takes is a dead end, so she turns around and keeps moving. She never seems to stagnate.
I told her about how difficult it was for me to change hair color, and that I was afraid my hair might weaken and fall out. Her answer was simple “It’s just hair, it’ll grow back, and if it falls out, well, you don’t have to mess with styling it.” So poignant.
Since I’m experiencing a big life change right now, finishing up a divorce that probably should have happened a long time ago, I decided to change my hair color to red. I doubt I’ll keep it this color for very long, but I guess that’s the whole point.
Thank you, Angela.
4 Responses to “Change”
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BillMan said on September 20th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I saw this quote either on a T-shirt or a bumper sticker, and it seemed germane to our post: “Change is inevitable– unless you’re standing at a snack machine.”
WHY did *I* get singled out for wondering about whether the “naked parts” were out of camera shot? Did I say anything about Mivox in her “trench” sequence http://www.flickr.com/photos/mivox/sets/72157600787999062/ other than to advise against climbing into unshored trenches? Anyway, I seriously doubt that ALL of the “naked parts” were out of the picture.
And for what it’s worth, I think you hair looks great. -
>WHY did *I* get singled out for wondering about whether the “naked parts” were out of camera shot?
Because you’re the only one who reads my blog.
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BillMan said on September 20th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Surely not. I’ve seen comments from mivox, and two people responded to your query about the mushrooms. And Kristine has commented. Or do your stats bear out this gloomy assessment?
I LIKE your blog. I look forward to your new posts. And as your friend Angela would say “Who cares anyway?”“Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite.” Notebooks of Lazarus Long from TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE by Robert Heinlein http://www.angelfire.com/or/sociologyshop/lazlong.html#inter
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Angela said on September 22nd, 2008 at 11:30 am
Heather,
Have I told you that I absolutely love you! Your kind words made me tear up. (FYI – Not a desert in Utah, but an indian ceremonial site in North Dakota, http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/11806. Utah is too far from where I live to drive to and get naked.)AND, I love the new color! Beautiful!
Ang
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