46. Spare Any Change?

Gerry laughed and shook his head.  Repeating himself, he said, “’The warmth of a new day.’ Now you got me talking in bumper stickers.  Well I burned the bridge, I don’t feel so warm right now, and I gotta start over.”

I said, “It’s good you burned the bridge, but be careful not to just duplicate your old life somewhere new.”

“I don’t think there’s much chance of that.  Living at my uncle’s won’t be anything like living with my parents.”

“You’ll be the same, unless you make some changes.  Maybe big changes, maybe small changes, but changes.”

He thought about it, and said, “You could be right. My parents molded me.  I’ve been this way a long time.  And here’s what worries me.  I don’t know if I can change. In school, I’d have these nasty break-ups with girlfriends, but then I’d go after a new girl just like the old one. By senior year I knew exactly what I was doing, but I’d do it any way.  I couldn’t stop myself. Even though the breakups were my fault I was always complaining about the girls being all alike.”  

“I’m convinced people underestimate their ability to change. I don’t know you well enough to be certain, but I’m guessing you could’ve stopped yourself.  Blaming the girls was just easier.  So now you’ve stopped taking the easy way out. You’ve stopped getting high and you’ve moved.  Two big changes.  Make some smaller changes instead of excuses and your whole life will change for the better.”

Today I’ll make at least one small change instead of one large excuse.

Needles Not For Knitting is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance between the characters and anyone you might know is purely coincidental.

Needles Not For Knitting (c) 2017 by Ken Montrose

Other works by Ken Montrose are available at:

http://www.amazon.com/Ken-Montrose/e/B001K8MG0S