Change. Again.

I'm beginning to become familiar with this feeling. A slight awareness of a new small "emptiness". The feeling that something left--not just somebody, but something with them--walked out of my daily consciousness and it is missed. Nick left today, and so did Jesse. Nick for boot camp, and Jesse for Iraq. Therefore today I am once again reminded of the acute but low frequency feeling of "loss".

In this case it is a "loss" of not really a loved one, for no one presently is deceased in my immediate family. Rather it is the "loss" of normalcy in the home in which I, we, were raised: Change, with a capital C. Embrace it or not. Weep or not, it's here. The Past walked out, and Change took it's place. Then, I suppose, as soon as Change becomes customary and fades into Normal, he will become the Past and a new Change will arrive. This is Life. Progress? Sometimes. Difficult? Nearly always, for me. I wish it weren't, but it is.

I wish that I could embrace (the "good") Change whenever he comes, recognizing his value, excited about what he has to offer. For every time, he is here to stay until he morphs into Normal, and I don't dislike him always in the end. I've not yet learned to do this, though.

But really, should I? This is the stuff of life. Pain, love, etc. The stuff of life is appreciated by the opposition and juxtaposition of the proverbial "mountains" and "valleys" that we experience. I would never know the sweet victory of success and fulfillment of a dream, for myself or someone else, if I did not endure change and allow Difference to settle in and adapt to its environment. I want amazing lives and realities for my brothers, Change must work his magic first for this to occur.

Change is amoral. It hurts sometimes--even when it's for the better--and is exhilarating at others. And it can make one feel any myriad of emotions on this spectrum of such between pain and ecstasy. It can be good or bad--the quintessential example of an amoral abstract noun: Change.

The fact is that it IS. The alterable factor though, in the entire equation, is how it is managed, handled. God, let me be godly.