WOULD YOU CHANGE YOUR STORY?

A couple of weeks ago I spent a lovely few hours catching up with some girlfriends. It’s always nice to just sit and eat, and talk and laugh and cry together. It’s always nice to talk to them about what I’m going through, but also to hear what is going on in their lives. It’s nice, in a strange kind of way, to listen to my friends as they talk about their own problems. It makes me realise that I’m not alone.

One friend was talking about a huge trial she has going on in her life right now and as we cried together another friend said, “It’s time to start a new chapter.” My friend replied, “Not a new chapter, a new story.” She wished she could just change everything.

I couldn’t help but think later that as much as we would love to start a new story at times, we can’t. Everything that we have experienced already – the good and the bad is a part of our story. We can’t just go back and rewrite. We can’t start again, but we get to continue on with the promise and hope for more and new chapters.

After Aaron passed away a friend asked me if I would change anything if I knew then what I know now about how these life chapters have gone. I didn’t even have to think twice about my answer.

I would not change a thing.

I would still have married Aaron, even if I knew that we would only have sixteen years together on earth. I would still choose to have Noah, despite his disabilities. It is all a part of my story and although I don’t like how the plot is going right now, I wouldn’t change it. It has made me who I am today.

A year ago, I attended Time Out For Women in Sydney and learned the same lesson. It just means something a little different to me today. Laurel Christensen was the first speaker, and her message was clearly just for me. Never mind that there were thousands of other women there. I can remember her talking about the Plan A that each of us seem to carry with us-the list of things we want and sometimes expect out of life. She talked a lot about her own life and how she always had a Plan A. Her life now is nothing at all like she had planned, but she has learned over time that she is still actually living her Plan A. It just wasn’t the plan that she had imagined.

And as heartbreaking as the last year or so has been, I am learning that I’m still living my Plan A.

Is it what I would have chosen for myself from the beginning? Maybe not. But today, up until this moment, I know I would choose it all again.

I still have three gorgeous boys that I’m continuing my story with. I’m scared about how the story is going to develop over the next ten, twenty or thirty years but I’m holding onto the faith that I have, that this story-my story- is going to have a happy ending.