![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.gloriacrist.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/images.jpg\" "\\"images\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n“Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. Turn and face the strange….ch-ch-ch-changes”\u00a0 Remember that song?\u00a0 It was an all skate song.\u00a0 Every Friday night.\u00a0 Funny how my life seems life a never ending\u00a0Davied Bowie song- still.<\/p>\n
I think it is fair to say the strange is upon me.\u00a0 Swathed in it I am.\u00a0 But then again, from very early on in my young bell bottomed Apple Chill\u00a0hippie days-I walked always in the direction of strange.\u00a0 As if, we had made a pact-us two,that, throughout this life- we would be side by side.\u00a0 God forbid I rest at the pitstop of comfort or ease.\u00a0 No, it was not to be.\u00a0 Ever.\u00a0 There is no before or after.\u00a0\u00a0There just is\u00a0not.\u00a0 There is just the ongoing of change-the incoming of strange. And it\u00a0all takes as much\u00a0time as it takes.\u00a0 No sooner.\u00a0 No later. \u00a0I reflect on this many times when I am trying to once again, figure it all out and come up with an answer.\u00a0 But no.\u00a0 Then I make peace with it all- well sort of-but sometimes, no-and realize I would never have been happy any other way.\u00a0 I would never have the stories and true encounters that shape and mold, bend and break-without choosing the path of strange.\u00a0 Not that I had a choice.\u00a0 For me, when nothing is happening-something is happening.\u00a0 Always.\u00a0 Though I never really know it until I am on the other side.<\/p>\n
I don’t know when to stop.\u00a0 It is a fault, I know.\u00a0 But because of this, I have been able to allow change for others-and through that some kind of change for myself.\u00a0 I think.\u00a0 The other day I received some pictures in the mail.\u00a0 They were\u00a0taken the August after I graduated from high school.\u00a0 I was with\u00a0one of my brothers in another country-surrounded by heritage and ancestors.\u00a0 I\u00a0looked through them all-and remember still to this\u00a0day, the feelings I had that summer.\u00a0 Preparing to go off to a very prestigious womens college ( I was terrified), ready to leave home ( I was elated), and yet, there I was free spirited\u00a0on the\u00a0back of a moped-tan and waving.\u00a0 Wanting so much to be different and “European”\u00a0and be damned…..or vice a versa.\u00a0 I was so young.\u00a0 My brother was so young and\u00a0awkward.\u00a0 Gangly and full of adolescent angst himself.\u00a0 I had not one clue as to the where or what of me was to be.\u00a0 That girl in that picture was so many life times ago and so much has happened( as one would hope) since then.\u00a0 That August.<\/p>\n
That feeling is with me still at times.\u00a0 Even now.\u00a0 To be different and be damned-forget the European-but not so much angst anymore.\u00a0 Just restlessness…with all the other layers grown over and over again\u00a0through time.\u00a0 Add to that the change that only motherhood, marriage, death and disappointment can bring…and here I am.\u00a0 Not angry.\u00a0 Not ashamed.\u00a0 Not embarrassed- or incomplete.\u00a0 Just still feeling my change-my strange.<\/p>\n