Because change happens in layers, we tend to notice only the big changes, the ones that bring us celebrations or sorrows.  Yet, while all of this is happening, the very world around us is changing and the very body and psyches we inhabit are changing, too.   Time is moving forward in its tireless quietness, changing the very climate we live in, politics we engage in, and body parts we live through.  Our very perspectives change with each passing day, with maturing mindsets and the effects of experience. We can never live through something twice, as the very context in which an event can happen has changed.  My second daughter going off to college this next Fall, for example, is a very familiar event, yet, I am so different going through it, as well as my family being different since our first daughter left. We are wiser, more experienced, and yet, it will be completely new with the emptying of our nest.

One of the traditions I really enjoy this time of year are holiday cards, particularly the ones with the family photos.  It seems like such a great way to sum up the year, capturing in a snapshot what has changed and what has stayed the same.  New family members are added, with births and weddings, and some people are lost, with divorces and deaths. Kids are taller, older people shorter, and the hairstyles and fashions ever evolve.  These recorded images encapsulate for me the bittersweetness of the New Year, the saying goodbye to the old and the ringing in of the new. It may be happening slowly across the years or very suddenly, but everything is changing.

Even our change changes over time.  This January will be the 25th anniversary of my sister’s death. There are days that it feels like it just happened, despite a quarter of a century.  I can remember her face, the sound of her voice, the familiar feeling of sisterly rivalry or supportive praise. Yet, in just a year or so, she will have been gone longer than she was with me.  I wonder what her life would have been like, what she would have thought of my girls, my home, my friends and wonder if we still would have had the same squabbles we did, all those years ago. Yet, my attitudes have softened and my pain has shifted.  Our differences seem trivial and even my own stories of her have been shaped by the years of retelling. She is still 33, still and forever more. The truth is, I am now the older one.

I have heard it said that “Father Time always wins.”  I’d like to think that I have a less adversarial relationship  with the man. Because time also heals, renews, and gives us something to work toward and look forward to.  But most of all for me, it brings perspective and gratitude. With every day that passes, I may have more gray hair, but I also have more appreciation for the meaningful things in life that turned them gray!