Some changes are intentional; some happen on their own

Kaity Holtman

We attended a wedding in mid-Missouri for a friend from college over the weekend.

I sang in the wedding, and then my husband played live music with some friends for part of the reception.

Some friends were friends we’ve seen at every wedding for the last seven years. Other friends we have seen only a couple of times since our college days.

Some friends look the same as the day they left college. Some definitely do not.

Some are still living the social life. Some have settled down more.

A wedding dance with our college friends six years ago when we got married was a night packed with dancing and partying until we got kicked out of the establishment.

The wedding dance over the weekend was a bit different.

This pregnant momma and her husband headed back to the hotel about 10:30 p.m. so we could get on the road home before the sun came up, to make it back before church.

Other friends left after supper or were toting car seats and little ones with them.

Conversations this weekend revolved about parenting challenges and wins, Christmas ideas, home ownership, and careers.

When friends’ weddings started, I’m not even sure we made time to talk, we just headed straight to the dance floor.

Now seeing one another comes much less often, and we appreciate catching up on one another’s lives way more than we used to.

We spent less time on the dance floor and more time in the back of the room chatting.

At one point on the way home, when my husband and I were talking about this, I even said, “we’re like our parents!”

The changes are good, though we did do some sentimental reminiscing about our glory days.

And it’s nice to see that all the work we put into our degrees and leadership roles have paid off into successful careers.

These changes happened without us even realizing it until we look around the room.

Now individually, we made intentional decisions to get married, have kids, buy houses, further our careers.

But collectively, we all “grew up” without realizing that we as a generation were growing up and changing.

Similarly, as I’m sure you’ve all already heard, Phil Cobb, owner of the Maryville Daily Forum and the Post, has made the intentional decision to take the newspaper from a daily newspaper to a weekly one.

A lot of other changes will occur as ripple effects, both in our office and around the community. Some of those changes are requiring a lot of thinking and planning by staff, other changes will happen without us even realizing it.

Either way, change can be a good thing, and we have to look for the positive in it all.

Looking at last weekend’s wedding, for example, we enjoyed the visits and probably felt better the next morning. We even got the opportunity to bounce parenting ideas off of our good friends, and hear about how well their lives are going.

Change is not always easy, but there is always good to be found in it.

As the “New Year’s Resolution” changes come quickly upon us, remember that even if they are difficult changes, they are worth it and will start a ripple effect on the way we want our lives to be moving forward.

Kaity Holtman is the Agriculture Editor for the Maryville Daily Forum.