CHANGE can be Beautiful

by Jermaine

Why is it that instinctively people cleave to what is?

Why does it take heartache, pain, suffering, disappointment, frustration, sickness and a long list of
other negative connotations for “us” to admit that change is necessary? I cannot count how many
times I have held on to the very thing(s) that I needed to let go of the most because I believed that
I couldn’t live without them. Of course, it is not just me. This is a universal truth that starts early
in our development as people.

Case and point:

My daughter is one of the most beautiful people I have ever encountered. (No, I am not just saying
that because she is my daughter.) She is only three years old and, like most girls, already has a
nurturing spirit growing inside of her. Everything that she has she tries to love. She already has
favorite outfits, favorite toys, and even a favorite blanket.

This blanket is a simple knit pink blanket that was purchased for her before she was born. Out of
the twenty or so blankets she has, this one just seems to be the one she holds the closest.

It almost feels like she’s the female Lionel from Charlie Brown. I see her dragging that blanket
around from upstairs to downstairs, downstairs to upstairs. Then I look again and the blanket is
being dragged from the den to the bedroom, from the bedroom to the living-room.

I see her sitting and eating with it, trying to brush her teeth with it, and even jumping right out of
the bath to run to it. She won’t turn it loose! It get’s washed multiple times in the course of a week
yet it manages to almost always be dirty from “something.”

The Blanket has to GO!

Most of the time my issue with the blanket is just the way it looks. It went from a bright-glowing-
pink-soft-fluffy-feeling blanket to a stale-flat-pale-gritty-feeling blanket in three years of endless
dragging. Normally I just shrug my shoulders and laugh at the thing but of late my daughter has
had a cold.

Any parent will tell you that germs from sneezing and coughing can get into the things the child
has contact with and cause them to stay sick longer instead of getting better.

So, grudgingly, we forced the blanket out of my daughter’s regular rotation. Of course, she wasn’t
pleased. It was change. It was something she loved, knew was hers, and had established familiarity
with. However, since the blanket is gone she has a better chance of getting over her cold faster and
not getting sick again.
She doesn’t know it but the garment is part of what was keeping her trapped in a state of sickness.
Her legitimate excuse: she’s three years old!

What about us?

We, as adults, know a lot of things that are keeping us from our true purpose, true potential, or
even, true happiness but we won’t let them go. We have friends, habits, and guilty pleasures that
keep us trapped in a state of sickness, frustration, disappointment, suffering, and/or pain and we’d
rather keep them close because they are familiar.

I guess this whole post is to remind us that sometimes CHANGE is beautifully necessary.
Releasing our security blankets is a tall order but a necessary step for us to grow into what we’re
destined to be.

It is time for us to take inventory. It is time for us to change. Even in the winter of life change
is possible.