Change is Good

So, it’s been a month and I have yet to write a new blog.

Maybe not a big deal for ya’ll, but for me, it’s really depressing as my therapy comes from writing.

So much change these days. Not just in my pockets but in my life.

I remember when it rained more and the crops thrived. I remember when summer seemed like an eternity and the fireflies at night were endless like the tree frogs down the hill. I remember when days were longer and I didn’t need all that much sleep to function. I remember when I didn’t have to worry, or at least I didn’t think I had to worry.

Everything is different now.

I worry about not having enough rain rather than worrying the rain will ruin my plans at the pool.

My latest nightmare had me waking up before the first day of school and summer was already over.

If I don’t get enough sleep, my day is ruined and I feel deprived of the energy I should have received.

Now as I write this, my daughter comes to lie in my lap awakened by the loud clap of thunder signaling the rain I have thirsted for over the past few weeks.

She looks at our dog Simba as if he is a hero, and she welcomes him into our living room

I, on the other hand, cringe as more dog hair makes its way into our home.

I wasn’t always like that.

I remember my first dog, Bingo. I remember loving him as much as my mom and my dad.

I remember being afraid of the drum roll that overtook the sky.

I remember being just like my daughter, same size, same fears, same loves.

About a year ago, I wrote about a wine called Vina Ardanza Rioja Reserva 2000 from La Rioja Alta.

I waxed poetically about its beauty and its grace and about the nostalgia that went along with it.

For the past 12 months, I have enjoyed selling that wine to those I knew would appreciate it, be it by the glass, with dinner or to take home to cellar.

I have loved that wine and I have shared my love to any who was interested.

Every time I would sell my last bottle, I would text the distributor to place an order for another case, maybe two. Every time I did this I would remind myself to buy a bottle to take home and keep as a memory because great wines do not last forever.

You can imagine my surprise and my sadness when my Vina Ardanza came in last Friday with a different label and a new vintage.

How could I have let this happen? I never saved one bottle for myself. I let it go. I let it be drunk until it was all the way gone. I blew it. What is wrong with me that I didn’t make sure one was stashed away as a keepsake?

I look at the new label.

It doesn’t say Reserva 2000. It says Reserva Especial 2001.

I look it up, and I find it is the third time the winery has made this bottling in the history of the winery. The years were 1964, 1973 and, now, 2001.

This is a new bottle, and it is special.

I open it and take a sip.

It is beautiful. It is regal. It is intense.

It is its own wine.

Change can be scary. It can be sad. It can even overwhelm.

But it can also be very, very good.