Sudden Changes

It was a beautiful and sunny late winter day.

In fact, it was really more like spring than winter... and the forsythia is starting to bloom, and hyacinths are starting to show their color. The sun doesn't really have warmth yet... but it looks like spring.

A squall line moved in, and all of a sudden ice started falling from the sky. Not snow, not sleet, but actual hail.

Hail is rare around these parts, and when it does fall it's typically the tiny grain-of-rice sized pieces that drop and melt almost instantly.

But not today.

Today we got actual ice cubes. And they pelted down, for about 8-10 minutes... the noise sounding like someone had installed a jet engine on the roof. After a few minutes, the street was actually white, like it had snowed.

Then the sun came out again...

Twenty minutes later, you would never have guessed that anything had happened.

This isn't a story about weather, though... it's a story about sudden unexpected change.

Sometimes things just happen, and they change the world and no matter how well prepared we might be, we still have no control over this change. And it's often unwelcome, and might completely derail what we were trying to do. We might even stand there and watch years of work/study/saving head down the drain in a matter of hours or minutes.

I remember when the gallery flooded.

"It was a 500-year rain event."

But we have insurance...

"Sorry, this was an 'Act of God' so you're not covered."

And so, you basically just have to accept that you are completely screwed and have no recourse... or the recourse you have — like "borrow money" — will basically keep you from succeeding, just as surely as simply walking away.

And such are moments in which you learn what you are really made of; how you handle trauma.

I laugh to myself at the reality that I am pretty much "God level" at handling trauma. At the same time, though, I am sick and tired of so much trauma and tragedy. But I know it's random, so I don't take it personally. Just like someone can guess right 10 times in a row on a coin toss, someone else can get it wrong, 10 times in a row. Even though it is chance.

A freak hail storm that smashes your spring flowers is just chance. A sudden change — unwelcome as it might be — that is foisted upon us.

And so, you either move on... or get stuck.

I choose to move on.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!

How about you? Have you experienced sudden change you had no control over? How well did you handle it? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2025.03.14 23:34 PDT
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