INTERRUPTIONS - PT. 2

Did you miss me last week? I managed to tangle with a virus that practically robbed me of a Thanksgiving dinner because my appetite up and left town. But I managed to enjoy a lovely dinner at my Ohio daughter's house. 

A month ago I promised you I'd come back with some more thoughts on the topic of Interruptions. The virus last week certainly qualified for the topic of the day. So here goes with Part 2..

Part 1, you may recall, covered the most likely annoyances I call Interruptions--not getting to finish my thought, my sentence, and so on.

Today--well, this is a horse of a different color. Big-time Interruptions. We've all had them. Here are a few you might recognize. Let's start back when we were kids:

• For some reason, you come home from school and learn that "we're moving." First you've heard of it. Never picked up on any clues. Nobody hinted. Just, "get your stuff together and put it in these boxes."
  
• At school--you go to class and there's a totally different person up in front of the class, sitting at the teacher's desk. You have a new teacher. How come? 
• Your best friend since kindergarten moves away.
• The school bus you've ridden ever since forever shows up with a different driver--who looks big and mean and doesn't smile like the nice lady who used to drive.

For a kid, those are Big-Time Interruptions to Life as Usual. Sometimes we know the why behind the change. Sometimes we don't. What we do know is that Things Are Gonna Be Different from Now On.

As an aside--when I ran into those things in my young life, I started to get uneasy. I mean, if those rock-solid parts of my life were shown to be crumbling to dust, what the heck else was gonna happen?

Stay tuned. There's lots more.

Okay, fast-forward, as we say nowadays, to adulthood. You're the parent or teacher or bus driver. Life seems to be rolling along pretty smoothly, considering. (Nobody's life goes only smoothly. Don't let them kid you.)

Then--whap! Interruption. Somebody gets injured in a car accident. You get a medical diagnosis you never thought you'd have to deal with. Your job goes away, for whatever reason. And life is never going to be the same again. That's Interruption.

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I hesitate to bring this up, but since some of you probably watch the news or listen to it in the car as you drive around, or get information on the Internet or from friends--one way or another, you're going to know about a whole bunch of Life Interruptions: wildfires, floods, crime, war, pandemics and other medical emergencies . . . . Whole lives changed in a short time. Families torn apart. Homes destroyed. To name just a few situations.

When we get to this point, we're talking about Life-Changing Decisions. There is, sadly, little opportunity to Go Back to what we once were. Many of us have tried that route. It's closed.

What we can do is go forward. Not, probably, in the way we thought we would go before. Maybe not straight ahead--more of a side step to find a different path. Many of us have had to experience this kind of shuffle--after a death, after the loss of a home or a job or a relationship.

And while that is the most likely way to deal with some of Life's Interruptions, it may be the best thing we can do for ourselves, our families, or our associates. I won't go so far as to say Interruptions are good--that they shake us out of our self-satisfied little rut so we don't stagnate--no, Interruptions may indeed do that, but we'll only see a positive result if we look for it. And, maybe even more important, accept it.

Time line? Heck, no! May take us all our lives. May be resolved in a few days/months/years. But we know we're on the right track if we keep on keepin' on. Who knows? We may help somebody else who's on that same rocky path keep their nerve. Always worth a try.

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There may be more to say on Interruptions, but I'm done with this subject. Next time we'll be looking at a different picture on the calendar--the days will be starting over at "1"--and if I can stay away from viruses and flu bugs, I'll be around to join you in the new month.

Blessings,

Thursday's Child

remember--forward is forward