Change is good, change is good. No. Seriously. Change is GOOD.

When I began this blog many years ago, it was a gut reaction to something very difficult that had happened in my life.  Writing has always been the way I worked through emotional distress, and thus, in the throes of one of the most difficult periods a person can endure in this life, I turned to the written word.  Over time, I have shared a great deal about myself - my thoughts, my feelings, my experiences, in the hopes that if another person out there was experiencing the same things and searching for someone who understands, maybe I could give them hope that while I cannot make it go away, they are not alone.  Someone out in cyberspace has been there and survived and they can too.  Sometimes that's all you need to keep going, and it is something I can offer.

But something funny happened on the way to the publish click.  Instead of dwelling on the dark things that haunted me, I started to find the humor in it all.  Instead of angst, I found joy.  At some point, a few years down the line, I realized I had moved from shock into anger, and finally from anger into indifference, a much more peaceful place to exist.

While my internal life was all awry, my external life was in chaos as well.  My son went to college, I lost a business, started a business, closed a business, and went to work at yet another business.  My daughter went from a young tween to a young woman in college, with the whole future ahead of her.  And I moved halfway across the country, back to my roots where I grew up.

Talk about your upheaval.  Uff da.

At long last, though, it seemed I was on the right track.  I moved into a house that was just exactly right for me.  I found a job that fit my needs right down to ground.  I have been able to indulge a passion for music and performance after many years of stuffing it down inside.  And I found a new start with a new love that was entirely different and fresh.  For the first time in many years, I found some peace and contentment for myself, and it was good.

Moving away from the anger to indifference was a positive, uplifting thing, and the move was a big part of it.  I thought I had finally arrived at the peace I have been looking for since I was young.  I thought this was the end, the last piece of the old puzzle being dropped into place, and I truly thought I would now put that puzzle away and never look at it again.

But I was wrong.  There is another step to freedom and to peace, one I didn't suspect, one I didn't understand, one I wasn't free to imagine until I found a happiness I didn't know I could have.  Instead of indifference, where I ignored the past and pretended it never existed either good or bad, I suddenly find I can embrace the good parts after all, and take them forward with me.

It is liberating to claim my own past.  It is freeing to understand that it is okay to find peace in the totality of my life.  It is scary to imagine that good and bad can co-exist, and I can choose what I want to carry with me for the rest of my life.  It is surprising to realize that life is, for the first time in a very long time, a lot of fun.

Why now, you can fairly ask?  I don't know, although I think it is at least partly due to the recent changes in my life.  I found the true love of my life, and marrying him one month ago has been a totally new experience for me.  I have had to throw out everything I thought I knew about love and marriage and start anew, both difficult and easy, but always interesting.  The knowledge that you are valued by someone else who chooses to do so every single day is a priceless gift, for which I harbor deep appreciation, and the foundation of reassurance that he provides, the unqualified love and acceptance, has been a boost to my sense of self-worth that cannot be duplicated in any other way.

But I think there is more to my new found progress.  Although I realized my new attitude all of a sudden, this did not happen in a moment or a day, no matter how special it was.  It has been a part of this long process, working in the background, unbeknownst to me, a surprise Easter Egg in my new operating system upgrade, that I suddenly stumbled across when the time was right.

I think time has healed and distance has forged wisdom, which have combined to give me a new perspective on what makes me a worthwhile person.  If I am the sum of my experiences, and I do believe I am, then if I am to be a good person, I have to have good in my past to draw upon.  It is that simple.

Should this be a revelation, at my age?  Probably not.  I am a slow learner.  But like the turtle, I do get there eventually.

I have started a new life.  I have stepped off the Jerry Springer stage, and my life is no longer in chaos.  Although I may not be a Walton, I am no longer a disaster waiting to happen, either.  Life is happening, good things are coming my way, I am no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop.  What a joyful realization.

At long last, I have left the worn old shoes in the road, and have picked up a new pair to take me the rest of the way.  I think these shoes will go the distance.

Life is good.  Very good.