Life is Flux: Curmudgeon's Corner

Written by Sanford Begley

Life is flux. That is a truism we are all familiar with. No matter how perfect, or perfectly horrible, life is, it will change. Now that change is sometimes good,sometimes bad, it is always changing. I am looking at examples of that in my life right now,and pondering what it will mean to me and mine. My sister-in-law is traveling with her mother on a grand tour of the country. She is a special needs person and is not handling the disruptions of her life well. In fact, my mother-in-law will probably cut her tour a bit shorter than originally planned so as to ease her discomfort. The changes are more than S-I-L can handle well. SU1 is also looking at change. He will be doing the last part of the tour with my M-I-L and spending the rest of his summer at her home in rural Oregon. This will be a major change for him as she lives in a far more isolated part of the country than he is used to. It will also be the first time he has spent an appreciable amount of time without his older sisters. For a change he won’t be the “baby” of the family. I hope this is good for him. I also hope that he doesn’t find it too stressful. DU1 will be starting college this fall. She will be 500 miles from any family and meeting all new people. I know how young people are at that age, after all I was that age once. With an aunt in NH along with her Great grandparents,and her father, her grandfather in NC, her mother in OH, and a grandmother, aunt, and other great grandmother in Oregon, she will be spoiled for choices of whom to visit during school breaks. If she is anything like I was at that age the attractions of doing things with friends can easily outweigh the desire to see family. She will be growing away from the nest and becoming an independent adult. DU2 will be a senior this fall. She is looking for a job and to become a driver. The world of college and adulthood is just over the horizon and beckoning to her with all its wonder and surprises. I hope most of them will be good ones, but this is an age for making mistakes and learning life. She has a lot of change coming to her. DU3 will be traveling to Oregon this fall, homeschooling under the watchful eye of her grandmother. By spring she will be old enough to drive and her future has so many paths opening that she is still completely unsure of the road she wishes to traverse. Change isn’t all about the kids though.  The wife has begun working as a chemist for a major pharmaceutical company, she is learning how to make solutions to test product, and how not to make solutions to blow up the lab. Me? Well I am working as a contract engineering tech and sliding into a mentor role for young engineers and techs. I don’t know how long this contract will last and where the next one will take me. I’m also dealing with grandchildren maturing and Great Grandchildren arriving. Needless to say flux is all I can see. I’d be willing to bet that most of you are experiencing change yourselves. This is not a bad thing, static life is called death. You are just continuing to breathe while doing so. Even if life is perfect for you right now change is still good, it will get better. Besides, if nothing changed we would all get really bored. (ed. Note: boring always sounds so appealing when life is in chaos, but once you’re bored, you miss the changes!)