Creating Change in Our Lives

Today, I celebrate my 44^th birthday. However, of more import to me is the fact that today my family also celebrates 14 years of living in Fresno. At first glance, that may seem like an insignificant thing to celebrate. But each year, on June 15^th, I recall my 30^th birthday with a bit of pride and nostalgia.

On my 30^th birthday, my son Eric and I bid goodbye to my husband who stayed behind in Los Angeles with the movers and to work a few last shifts as an Emergency Medicine resident. Toddler in tow, I hit the road with two sleeping bags, a couple of lawn chairs, a TV, a VCR and a handful of Barney videos. We drove the four hours north to a town where I knew no one and moved into an apartment that turned out to be overrun frequently by ants. Eric had a bad case of the chicken pox, so he and I were sequestered in the empty apartment trying to avoid the 100 plus degree scorching heat outside. I was turning 30 alone, in a place where I knew not a soul, with an infectious kid and an irritating purple dinosaur. I was not a happy camper.

I permitted myself the length of one “Barney and Friends” episode to have a good, old fashioned pity party. I cried for the friends I had left behind, for the lack of a beach within bike riding distance, and most of all for the widening gulf between myself and my parents who remained behind in Southern California. I sobbed over the fact that my baby now had no playmates and that he would like suffer from heat prostration in our new hometown. I lamented the fact that at thirty years of age (ancient, right?) and in possession of a Master’s degree and several years of professional experience, the most important duty I would have that day was to make sure my toddler had fresh diapers and didn’t fall down the stairs of our new town home. What had I become?

As Barney sang the “clean up” song in the background and the closing credits rolled, I grabbed a handful of toilet paper (I hadn’t packed Kleenex) and the yellow pages. Then I did something which still makes me proud fourteen years later – I opened the phone book and started making phone calls, looking for friends and activities. I called the local parish, the newcomers club, the YWCA, the library and even the local Catholic hospital looking for a new life for Eric, Greg and I. Within a few hours, my calendar for the coming week held an activity for each morning and my heart held a spirit of optimism and hope.

Tonight, I will celebrate my birthday with a friend I met at a playgroup that very first week in Fresno. My life is full, happy, and blessed. I am glad that I took the responsibility on that 30^th birthday to fully engage myself in my new home and in cultivating a new set of relationships that have stood the test of time.

Sometimes life deals us blows that make us sad, bitter, or unhappy. Frequently, the circumstances of those “bad times” are beyond the scope of our own control. But other times, our destiny lies in our own hands. We simply have to make the decision to be happy and then follow the baby steps to get there. My parents have taught me that sometimes the best solution to “shaking up” our own unhappiness lies in looking to be of service to others. Whether it’s a job situation, a house so cluttered with junk that you can barely walk through it, a body in need of twenty fewer pounds, or a spiritual dryness that has us down, we can all look both to God who loves us and within ourselves for that decision to make a change today.

So today, although my body is one year older, I mark the fourteenth anniversary of deciding to be happy, and of building a happy home for my family – now, that’s something to celebrate!