Sometimes Change...

Sometimes change isn’t the elephant in the room

Sudden, Sharp, and Loud

Sometimes it’s the whirring of the dishwasher 

Easing its way into the background

And your brain accepts it without really knowing it

It silently makes its way in

Quietly and smoothly

Like the swift transition 

Your body makes in pregnancy

Or in outgrowing last year’s favorite school outfit

It is the cool mundane

That drifts in for a little while

And suddenly you look back and find

Your mundane has changed again

It’s coming up on a year of marriage

And you wonder if your brain still takes in

That you’ve lived in your apartment for that long

Gone to a new church that long

Or spent every day with your spouse

Dinner, devotions, evening slow down

And yet so much has changed since that year ago mark

It’s when you look back and read your previous marks on paper

And find that it’s been a very long time

Since you’ve even thought that way

Like the fact you’ve changed in the past year of big life changes

But wouldn’t know it

Unless you looked back

It’s the transformation of the guest room to the baby room

From writing supplies to baby books

From empty space to bassinet place

From easy walking to barely hobbling 

From just me by myself

To a baby constantly pushing on me and wiggling 

And soon that will all change once again

To no more the constant in me

But the constant outside of me

From dreaming of you

To seeing your face

And wanting to hold time in place

Only to realize I’m a few short years 

From ordering school curriculum

And beginning that journey I remember oh so well

Just like it was yesterday 

Change, it marches on

And I’m not sure if its the big sudden change that hurts so much

Although tragedy always beckons front stage

But it’s the quiet, unseen, sly change 

That steals into the everyday

And suddenly

The leaves are on the trees

The flowers are blooming

On limbs that were empty just yesterday 

We sometimes see change as such a harsh thing

Nostalgic and unbelievable

but perhaps with it too

Comes a fullness and expansion

We would never have known otherwise