July 30, 2012

Times they are a changin..........

Bob Dylan song for those of you too young to know that one.  After almost 25 years in hospice, life is about to turn to another chapter.  Strangely I don't find this uncomfortable, I do find those others who are turning a chapter without resources troublesome but there is no rhythm or reason to the needs of today's businesses and I hope the ones without resources have people who love them and will help them through troubling times.  These times call for stoic measures, economy is bad, people out of work, and now I'm about to join them.

I discovered several years ago that we Americans have a somewhat warped way of looking at work. I don't know why it took me that long to figure it out. We put a lot of emphasis on it, worry about it constantly even when we're not there and it seems it takes over too many places in our minds.  We can't let the smart phones go, can't relax and sometimes the companies or people we work for seem to demand that we give it all of our attention all the time.  When all of this occurred to me, I decided it was time to change that.  

I saw generations before me struggle to make ends meet and then work and work and not get anywhere.  Somewhere along the line I decided that I could work hard for the company but also work to enjoy life and do the things that mattered to me too.  To see children, see grandchildren born, participate in summer vacations, help with illnesses and enjoy celebrations,  lots of things like that make up a person's life.  I never wanted anything fancy or over the top, just the basics with a few vacations thrown in to explore new worlds and countries.  That doesn't seem too complicated to seek out.  So, we lived that life for a while, 20 years to be exact and we enjoyed it and hope to do it more.  But it is time to change, time to challenge myself again, time to explore helping other people!  After all, I'm only 58!

There is one constant in my life that sustains me (other than family and friends), something so simple and so easy, that it almost seems TOO simple.....it is a needle and thread.  Simply put it's the ability to cut up perfectly good fabric and make it into something else. It is the quilt.   It is the joy of a new line of fabric, it is the immediate decrease in the stress level upon walking in a fabric store.  It is the smile of the ladies who work at the favorite quilt store and know me by name, not only because of the money spent there but the concern and joy of helping find the perfect fabric.  They quietly put my purse behind the counter because they know I hate to carry it around and just keep the watchful eye on me as I wander through the store.  It truly is a spiritual experience, truly in God's eyes, my experience.

So we will go forth to new challenges, all the way looking for the new quilt to inspire us but also looking for a desk drawer to work at with a little scrap of fabric in it that we occasionally take out to touch, to get us through the day.......