Sunday, April 27, 2014

Broken Glass Just Happens

The glass went flying from my hand, into the air, almost in slow motion. I knew, in what seemed like more than the milliseconds that passed, that this would not end well. And when those milliseconds were over, the tiny Curious George picture was broken into tiny pieces of glass all over my kitchen floor. I uttered a guttural sound, devastated by both the broken glass and by the loss of a non-valuable, yet beloved, part of my whimsical collection of glassware. Breaking a crystal goblet might have upset me, but breaking Curious George almost brought me to tears.
 

Having cleaned up the glass, I thought, "I wasn't even doing something stupid" when it broke. I wasn't trying to fit things in obvious non-workable spots, or handling multiple glasses at a time, or counting on wet hands to put away glasses safely. This broken glass incident just happened. It just happened.
 

I would like to think that I could control all the "just happeneds." If I could, the glass wouldn't be broken, my time of being out of work might not have existed, separation from all my ABC friends might never have occurred. And yet, when I think about all of the interesting things that have happened BECAUSE some of these things just happened (well, nothing yet from the glass, but...), I can't help but think that perhaps it's okay that we can't control all the "just happeneds." We would likely make the safe choices, the choices of what we know. And while this might keep us protected from a lot of uncertainty and stress, it would also keep us from experiencing the new things that come along when things "just happen."
 

I am still sad about my Curious George glass. But we move on. And prepare ourselves for the next thing that "just happens."

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