Outside Edge: Change Through Holidays

Periods of our lives increasingly overlap. Work, leisure, holiday. It's often hard to find the space to discover what we actually feel. We are changing all the time. Our feelings to situations progress as we age. Maybe we will meet someone special, maybe we don't. We could have kids perhaps. Those kids might have challenges and we help them because we're parents now and we have responsibilities. We do it because we must, driven by convention and society. We notice our relationships also change with those around us as our priorities shift. We have less time. We see how that friend who was always by our side is now no longer there, or how a sibling that you felt was close was never really that close after the loss of a mother or a father. Families and friendships move and shift and settle and when one of the major supports of your life is no longer there, our whole world collapses a little and we are left with a new place and perspective to build our emotions from. A fallen, half collapsed pile of wood that isn't a complete new structure but is new starting point, stronger than we thought possible but also fatally modified. Never to be the same again.

We are all built on shifting sands, islands that appear and disappear and shift out of control. Stopping seems rarely an option. But stop we will.

Last week I spent a few days in Terschelling, one of the Dutch Wadden islands. These sand dunes, barely higher than the surrounding sea, are a playground for people to busy themselves, to pretend that they are relaxing. Seemingly though they are mere extensions of our mainland selves. Not remote or desolate enough to be truly wild. Arriving on the boat, you are encouraged to rent bicycles but really there is no need if you are there for a few days. Take a bus if you must, or better, just take some walking boots and stretch your legs through the dunes and the sands, avoiding the thoroughfares full of bikes and families doing what they do, doing their stage of their lives.

Enjoy the good that you see around you. Enjoy the pubs. Enjoy the locals rolling their eyes at your pronunciation. Enjoy the time to be challenged to think about nothing but yourself, your feet falling in time with the waves lapping, the sand sifting here or being constrained there. The distant lightning, thunder, the showers that pass through and over us.

We can be alone in the middle of a crowd, or surrounded by people on an island. There is always a good time to stop. Always a good time to change.

Have a good Sunday.