I can see clearly now...

We've been putting new windows in our house.  Our old windows are/were 49 years old. Our house was born the same year as I.  We are both getting ready to celebrate a half century... gulp.  The windows are making us feel like we are living in a new house.  We are looking at our yard, the sky, the trees, the world with fresh eyes, seeing clearly for the first time in many, many years.  For the last 10 years, we had pretty much given up on attempting to keep our old windows clean & painted, you can only scrape, wash and re-caulk so much... alot of the windows were broken, replaced with cardboard or plastic.. the excuse was that we were going to get new windows... eventually.

It's stunning to see the difference.  It's amazing to feel the difference. What's really freaking us out though is hearing the difference. We can look outside and see the wind but we can no longer hear it.  It's quite disconcerting, it's so quiet in here.  I'm not sure I like it.  I can't hear the traffic or the children playing.  We haven't put them in the upstairs rooms yet so it's so weird going up and hearing the outdoors and coming down and hearing the indoors, which is fairly silent.  Weird.

So much of life is spent doing the same things over and over.  Living in the same place, listening to the same sounds, breathing the same air.  Every now and then something comes along to shake us out of our usual and then suddenly everything seems unusual.  And you look around and realize things are COMPLETELY different.  When did THAT happen? In the last 5 years my life has once again radically changed.  And somehow remained the same. 

I wonder what I will replace in my personal 50 year old "house" that will make everything seem fresh and new?  Where could I put new windows?  On my friends? my family? my career? Hmmm, sometimes the choices are made for us, I guess.. although we put the wheels in motion.  Sometimes we have to look at relationships through new windows and realize that maybe they aren't the best for us, maybe they never were but we kept refusing to clean them out, letting them get dirtier and patched until maybe the only thing to do is to replace them.  Sad. But sometimes necessary.  Same with careers... structures... and even family... things change.. we have to change with them or run the risk of letting them breakdown all together.

But with each change comes a bit of regret... I do miss the sound of the wind.  But I can still faintly hear the wind chimes.  :-)  And I LOVE the sunshine!

Namaste'