Thursday, August 27, 2009

seeing things in a different way

It is human nature. When we get close to a person, a project, a situation we can lose our objectivity and see things through a very narrow lens that filters reality based upon our experiences and opinions.

As I'm winding down my time with the bookstore. Meetings are starting to happen between the new gals and all of the 'interested' parties. Change is in the air and people sense it and start to get a tad bit nervous. I'll be glad when things are finalized and I can truly step out of the picture. It is difficult to be in charge and begin to let go all at the same time.

We all want a smooth transition and I believe we will have one amongst the three of us.....it is all the other players that need coaxing along. My way will not always be their way and that does not mean either way is correct or incorrect. It only means that it is different.

I read another one of Shirley Damsgaard's Abby and Ophelia mysteries yesterday. I needed a major diversion from reality and the book served that purpose. I didn't get much of anything done other than making phone calls, reading and watching some very mindless daytime television.

My parents are now on their way to Florida to be with my mom's mother. My grandma is in ICU right now and seems to have suffered a stroke. I was able to speak with her yesterday afternoon, much to my relief. With the loss of my dad's mom this past January and now the rapidly declining health of my other grandma, I spent a lot of time yesterday thinking back on my relationships with these two women and their lives and the impact their lives had on me. I see things in a different way now than I did even ten years ago. Aging does that. It tinkers with those lenses and filters and sometimes brings things into a sharper image while blurring other pictures and memories.

I'm anxious for my parents to arrive there and to be on hand for her. We don't know what the next few days will bring, but our realities will shift and some things will become clear and others more muddied. It will be different and change is hard.

1 comment:

Anne's BLOG said...

An Old and Longtime friend commented in an email the other day, " I think about the poignancy of the Streisand lines from 'Memories': "What's too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget." There was much
pain in our adolescence - that was not the easiest of times for most of us - but most of that we have simply chosen to forget. Either that, or there were so many happy times for us, that those are the times that we most remember!"

And he is right - about adolescence, family relationships, friends and changes.