Change

I was just thinking how our lives change… I can’t tell you what train of thought led me to this,  I think it started with thinking about this hot weather, and people working in the heat, and people moving from country to country, English people going to Australia and finding almost perpetual sunshine, Indian people moving to England and finding cool and rainy weather… I began to think how lives change.

• When I was born I was an only child, with both my parents, three grandparents,two aunties and one married uncle, one aunty and one uncle who were unmarried, I had two cousins and we lived in a ground floor flat which we rented.
• When I was ten I had a younger sister, my parents were well and happy, I only had one grandfather left, and my aunties and uncles were in the same marital situation as ten years previously, but I now had five more cousins, and we still lived in the flat.
• When I was twenty years old, our family had moved to the west country and now lived in a bungalow, I was at a Polytechnic, my sister was at college, my grandfather had died, all my aunties and uncles were now married and I had ten cousins.
• When I was thirty years old I owned my own flat, my sister was in a care home as she had been involved in a terrible accident, four of my cousins were married and they had five children themselves
• When I was forty years old my mother was dead, I owned my own bungalow, all but one of my cousins were married, there were many more children, and there had been a couple of divorces

Everything changed for me when I was forty, I got married! During my years before my marriage I had moved from place to place, east to west, west to north, I’d had friends I’d lost friends, I’d had jobs, I ‘d changed jobs, I’d travelled in Europe and to Singapore and to the USA, I’d had successes, I’d made mistakes, I’d had my heart broken, I’d found my beloved husband…

Our lives change… and isn’t it wonderful that they do!