be still my soul

The truth is, I had a few blue hours the first part of this new year when I realized how little had changed since this time last year. It hit me after reading one of last year's first journal entries, which read eerily similar to this year's first entry.

Those who knew me in high school - really knew me - probably think of me as someone who doesn't like change much. I didn't even like to travel. But now? I sort of crave change. Not big change, though that seems kind of interesting too. I crave little change that shows I'm moving in life instead of just standing still.

The thing is, I've read Rilla of Ingleside - where she's all bored with her very pretty 1900s life in Prince Edward Island in which "nothing exciting ever happens" - and then the War breaks out, and oh how she wishes for ordinary again.

So, I didn't stay blue about ordinary for long. Thank God for ordinary. Thank God I got through so many years without a single recurrence scare from the whole Cancer Saga 2005. Thank God all my children are still around me happy and healthy and growing. Thank God our house, though smaller and older and more flawed than we would like, is still standing along with all our photographs and memories within it.

And then, from there, I thought about the little things that have changed in a positive way. We got a new table for the first time in our life together. Jake can now answer how old he is (he's FOUR!). I don't have a book published yet, but I do have a second one written. That can only be moving me forward, right? And in all the happy, peaceful things that matter, I'm one year more aware of them.

Still. I bought a brand new bag at Kohl's on Saturday. And that was an awfully happy thought on Monday morning: I have a new bag. Things do change.