The Winds of Hurricanes & Change
Flexing the earth’s crust, the thirty-three trillion tons of water from Hurricane Harvey changed the course of history. The environmental impact notwithstanding, Hurricane Harvey forced millions onto a completely new trajectory with the entirety of its implications for Houston and the nation still unfolding. As for many, our family was swept us onto a new path of displacement, awe, and loss by the winds and floods of Mother Nature. In the last six months we’ve experienced the transformative shifts and reflections of physical and emotional displacement that one should force themselves to seek when life commands change.
“Change”… the bad guy lurking in the dark alley is much too often how we perceive the unsettling flux of something new or different, especially when it is sudden, unplanned, and unwanted. The drop in your gut with bad news or the deep seated premonitions of pending doom approaching are feelings that we want to avoid at all costs. Complacency, even settled unhappiness, is often more desired than uncomfortable, transformative, and even painful change. Yet, change is a vital metamorphosis.
If we aren’t changing, we aren’t growing. Moreover, I contend if we aren’t changing we aren’t able to live a life in which ultimate happiness and centeredness can be achieved. So we search… we search for new pathways, reignited passions, resilience, strength, and honestly a way in which we can accept change, embrace change, and not need the answers to the unknowns.
The whys, or rather the unanswered questions, are the most maddening part in the process of change. As our family was swept into the changing tides of a post Harvey Houston and sought refuge, respite, and reflection in another state; the unanswered whys still haunted us as ghosts from our past, present, and future. There were dark moments of doubt, fear, concern, and feelings of helplessness. Frustrations abound, the grief for our life pre Harvey was the reckless subterfuge to our healing, acceptance, and clarity towards a new path. Life had literally thrown us into the winds and floods of a hurricane, and in our futile stubbornness we tried to fool ourselves that we could stand unwavering in a path of destruction. The discovery, of course, was the empowerment of change. Stepping onto a less resistant path, we stopped fighting the winds that had been pushing us back for the last two years and found some calm waters to reflect, rejuvenate, and recommit to our life, love, and home in Houston.
Back again, but not the same, it has been a repatriation of sorts into our old lives as further changed persons with new experiences and even new wounds. On one hand it is like we never left as our home, neighborhood, community, and friendships all feel like an old worn glove of comfort, familiarity, and centeredness; and on the other hand we feel forever shaped as deeply as the Earth’s crust is flexed by Harvey.
Metamorphic change is upon us all. There is a renewed solidarity in our family unit, and an awakened reminder that complacency can become your own worst enemy and distraction from growth. Additionally, we mustn’t ever commit to action or inaction based on fear. We opened up our hearts, minds, and the doors of opportunity to our next chapters— whether they were in Texas, in Kentucky, stateside, or abroad. Houston, in the end, was our constant in a sea of personal change— change, that is here, desired, and beloved.
Taking leaps into the unknowns have been the Carruth way for some time now, but we needed a Hurricane to remind us to quiet the fears and to listen to the constant underlay of cues that exist around all of us. Our prompts were career, education, and family rooted.
Quiet your apprehensions and listen to the underlay…. what is next? What is your leap? Embrace the metamorphosis.— without the hurricane. And live for the adventure in change!
