When Things Change, We Must Adapt!

I had a dream last night that I was home for Thanksgiving with all my aunts and uncles, and I was last in line for the mashed potatoes.  When I went to scoop the fluffy whiteness onto my plate, there was just a tiny bit left around the edges, and I realized the food wasn't mashed potatoes, but rice.  I kind of shrugged and just put the rice on my plate, and then there was enough for a full serving and even more.  I put soy sauce on my rice and thought, "Well, this is fine I guess, but it's not like usual Thanksgiving."

When I woke up, I realized this is how I feel a lot of the time this Advent season: "This is fine I guess, but it's not like usual."  I was describing to S. Redempta this morning how my house would be decorated if I was at home, what kind of cookies we'd be making and what music we'd listen to and where we'd go shopping.  It made me a little homesick and lonely. 

Then I spent the afternoon working with S. Anamaria.  She's been working SO hard this whole semester, but especially this week on a reflection paper about her student teaching experience.  The theme that keeps emerging in her writing is how things changed when she taught - how her lesson plans never went quite according to plan, how the kids reacted either positively or negatively, how she was constantly learning as she went.  As we sat down and I commented on the beautiful sunshine streaming through the windows and lamented the impending rainstorm for the weekend, she told me in her very matter-of-fact voice, "When things change, we must adapt, Megan."  I think she is the best philosophy professor I have ever had.  I thought about all the changes she has had to adapt to in the past semester, in the past 8 years she's been in America, in coming to the convent in Africa from a very poor childhood, in studying education instead of nursing like she had planned, in eating processed American food instead of rice and beans every day, in having electricity and running water all the time instead of for a few hours each day, and in countless other ways.  And here I sit, moping around because I have to miss Christmas with my family once! 

I have never been good at embracing change.  As S. Monika reminded me last night, there are people in the world who like to plan things and make decisions and have all their doors closed (we extreme J's on the Myers-Briggs scale), and there are people who like to have their options wide open.  I forget that sometimes because my three best friends aren't here to demonstrate the P side of the scale to me every day (and many of the sisters are pretty J, too).  But as change is forced upon me, and as I often have to sit with myself and listen to the thoughts I'd rather not give myself time to think, I am at least realizing how challenging it is for me to change.  I don't know that I'm getting any better at adapting, because I still have days when I'm just sad and all I want is to be home with my family and friends like usual.  But I'm acknowledging the sadness, the emptiness, recognizing my human weaknesses, and letting the sisters and God just be with me as I learn how to be more fully myself. And I'm letting myself be ok with being human and feeling both happiness and sadness.

So.  I'm trying to take Anamaria's motto to heart.  I am trying to let my heart be open to change, and to be willing to adapt.  I'm trying to change my subconscious, "Well, this is fine, but it's not usual" to "Well, this is something wonderful and new to try!"  I'm also trying to remember that once I accept something new, it is often more fulfilling and rewarding than I originally thought - like my dream-rice multiplying on my plate.  And it is wonderful to be here, and I am so thankful to belong to this community.  I couldn't be in a more hospitable place to learn life lessons.

Peace and love.