Ever After

"Things do not change; we change."

                      Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Thoreau is only partly right; we do change but when we change, we change everything. 

The great big world goes on about its way and never notices the tiny little circles of change around each of us. But in the ever-so-small cloud of our lives, those changes shake us to the very center of what we are. Our story is re-written by the changes all around us and alters who we are.

Everyone lives in a story after all and many stories begin with "Once upon a time..." and end with "happily ever after."

We all wish for our own 'Once upon a time' but 'happily ever after' is only a roll of the dice and a blink of an eye. The changes along the way may turn a bedtime story into a nightmare or a stormy midnight into quiet dawn. The 'ever after' that comes from the hand you dealt may not be so happy after all. Or you might run the table and walk away with pockets full. You never can tell which way the wheel will turn but the story will never be the same afterward.

All of us change and in the doing, change our world and everyone in it. Friends come and go, families drift apart, love fades and becomes memory. Things really do change and we ourselves are the reason.

Maybe the peaceful Walden that Mr. Thoreau looked out across never changed much but the little pond in my coffee cup has been full of tempests for a very long time. Changes in the weather that roar like a sea running heavy before a gale and screaming with the voice of an albatross. Changes in everything.

Someday there will be an 'ever after'...but until then, the dice are still rolling.