Window of opportunity…

My son had a cochlear implant when he was 12 years old.  He was the first child in our city to have one after the FDA approved the device for children.  It works wonderfully, but he doesn’t use it.  You see, the window of opportunity for his brain to make all the connections necessary for hearing had passed.  We know now that children have windows of opportunity for learning language, music, etc.  I didn’t pick up the guitar until I was 20 years old.  I accept that I will never play better than adequately, no matter how much I might practice.  My window of opportunity for musical proficiency has long since passed.

I have an e-friend whom I’ve known for about 5 years.  She is in her early 70’s and she is looking towards the end of her life, not in a fearful or morose sort of way, but more of an accepting way.  When I first “met” her, she posted very seldom.  She almost always apologized for being long-winded (even though her posts might have been but a single paragraph).  In the several venues in which we both participate, she has expressed a sense of spirituality that is very much like mine – mystical, immanent, free of artificial, man-made restrictions.  She comes out of the same Roman Catholic tradition as I, but seems to have found a certain sense of peace about that which she cannot change.  (I, on the other hand, still struggle with the Church.  L)  But she consistently undervalued her own comments when she was responding to someone reflecting a very different sense than her own, offering the inference that, perhaps, the other was more valid.  So she referred to herself as “sitting on the curb.” 

Over the last couple of years, I have noticed an evolving change in the way she expresses herself.  She is no longer self-deprecating.  She doesn’t apologize.  She speaks her truth, knowing it is hers.  If it doesn’t match someone else’s sense of truth, so be it.  She knows others’ truths don’t contradict hers.  From the time I first got to know her, I felt a certain connection to her.  I have confidence in my own truth, but if someone else shares the same sense of truth, I am pretty sure I am not crazy.  She affirms my sanity.  But now…now she has become a wonderful example!  She is even willing to challenge the sexist attitudes of some men.  She has become an Uppity Woman.  I say that with the utmost of affection and respect.

I know we all change until the day we die.  I also know the impatience and distress of feeling like I am not making as much “progress” as I’d like in attuning myself to the needs of others, ridding myself of familiar bad habits, developing the “good” habits on my list, growing into who I believe I was made to be, etc.  My e-friend lets me know that it’s not too late.

The window of opportunity for transformation never closes.

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