Where the Wind Takes You

Outside my window, the wind blows and leaves, unable to hold on tight enough, tumble from their branches and scatter, bouncing around here and there before being unceremoniously dropped to the ground and forgotten.

Life can be like that sometimes, I suppose. It rips you from the familiar and tosses you around unthinkingly. In those moments there is little else to do but ride the currents as gracefully as you can and see where you land. But unlike the leaf, what happens at that point is to a certain extent up to you.

You can choose, of course, to lie there among the other discarded leaves, feeling hurt and angry, ruefully reminiscing about days gone by. You can cast about for someone to focus your anger on. Surely, it isn't your fault that you are in your current predicament. The fault
must lie elsewhere. And there, caught up in a cycle of anger and blame, your spirit dries up and crumbles into meaningless debris.

We are not leaves, however; a desolate end need not be our fate. We can, instead, accept our circumstances and simply move on. Memories of the past can nurture and sustain us rather than fuel our resentment. We can accept that change is inevitable and can be seen not as a punishment but as an opportunity. An opportunity to change and grow. An opportunity to experience the world from a different perspective. An opportunity to lay down roots somewhere new and maybe, just maybe, make the world a tiny bit better than it was before.