Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: musings


by 7 Comments

Nothing to say

Today on the 11th anniversary of the attack on America I find I have no cohesive thoughts.  Yet I can not let the day go by without saying something.  Maybe it’s a day for each of us to have our own thoughts and our own memories. Surely this day is not as difficult for those of us who lost no immediate family members, no close friends, no acquaintances as it is for those who did.  But we were all changed that day.

We all lost some of our complacency, some of our tenacity, our feeling of being immune to the sort of hate we’d all seen on TV in news reports from some other part of the world.  We lost that safe feeling.  But only for a moment.  Because even as the second plane hit, before we realized the magnitude of what was happening, we were already gathering ourselves.  I remember telling my staff that “they might be able to kill some of us, but they can’t get us all.”  And reassuring them that we were safe there at work, encouraging them to check on their family and friends, letting them hang together is a quiet group gaining comfort and strength from each other.

We all changed that day, and change is hard.  But not so hard that we can’t all take a moment to remember those whose lives changed the most; the family and friends of the almost 3000 people that died.  And especially those 3000 people themselves.  For them, change was the most profound.

We are strong.  And we will never forget.


by 17 Comments

Overwhelming stress…or the story of the jello failure

Have you ever had an hour or a day or a week when you need to do too many things?  When you should work with multiple lists to remind you of tasks to be done?  But because you’re too stressed to make the lists you muddle along doing the best you can?  Sometimes things don’t turn out so well.

You know what jello is, right?  That wiggly insanely colored not food thing.  I was supposed to make it last night before I went to bed.  I promised to make it last night before I went to bed.  But I went to bed without thinking about jello.  The neon food never entered my mind.

Even this morning as I was getting ready for work I didn’t think about my promise.  Until I pulled the cereal box out of the pantry.  And there it was.  The little box staring accusingly up at me.  The box of jello dust.  Waiting for the boiling water.  Waiting for me to fulfill the promise.

I put breakfast on hold and set the kettle on the stove.  Water takes a long time to boil when you’re in a hurry but I didn’t use that time to read the directions.  That would have entailed finding my glasses, and after all this was jello.  Who needs directions?

So I boiled the water, poured out one cup of the steaming liquid and stirred it into the jello fixings until it was clear.  I knew that the little box made four servings, so I poured it into four little custard cups, each cup not even half full.  Hmmmm, I thought.  That’s odd.  I remember the servings being bigger than this when I was a kid.  But when was the last time I actually made jello and poured it into little cups?  So I put them in the refrigerator and set about making my breakfast.

But something kept nudging my brain.  How is it that a small box of jello is supposed to make four 1/2 cup servings and what I had looked like so much less?  How come.  How come.

WAIT!  Where was that box?  Where were my glasses?

The directions say one cup of boiling water….and one cup of COLD water!  AHHHHHH  I could double my output if I followed the directions!  Isn’t that just like life.

I grabbed the four pathetic custard cups of jello out of the fridge, poured them back into the bowl, added the cold water, stirred.   And I laughed quietly, assuring myself that I’d never tell anyone about my failed jello project.  But I’m telling you.

Keep it under your hat, OK?

Don’t let the stress make you crazy!