The Flames of Change

Oct 10, 2026  It has been one month today since the fire that turned our home of 37 years into a soggy shell of ash. Surveying my current landscape, I have this to say: what a life-changing event this has been. It makes you conscious of everything you do, everything you touch, and everything you truly need.

I have spent decades speaking on the principle that change is the only constant in life. Well, I had never considered a complete flush!

When everything flushes, all of your patterns change simultaneously. The true test isn’t the suddenness of the event—it is learning to deal with a tabula rasa. Everything known becomes unknown. Habits you never even realized you possessed suddenly become obvious, dominant, and irritating. Once-simple rituals become handicapped tasks. You feel as though you’ve been dropped into a maze without a map.

The smooth pace of daily existence is interrupted because nothing is where you last saw it. You feel momentarily inadequate to accomplish a simple task or respond to a minor request. Where you were once spurred to meet every challenge, you now find yourself looking to others to advance a solution—navigating an exhausting volley of “don’t knows,” bolstered by a few “WTFs.”

Tomorrow arrives like something you’ve never seen, never anticipated, and never imagined. It looms like an inescapable prison—one you know you have the strength to escape, provided you master the multitude of small tricks necessary to clear the fence.

You look back at the past with pride: all the battles won, medals collected, mountains climbed, skies flown, and oceans swum—both with and against the tide. And you realize that no easy exit is ever promised. No free pass is given. Tomorrow never changes its promise, because it is always the day after today.

Life is the cake, and love is the icing. And you are still its baker.

Enjoy the slice that is served today, and prepare to be served another tomorrow. The juxtaposition between where you have been and where you stand now is your new reality. Enjoy the new day, and give thanks that it appears once more.