No lighting struck.  No drums rolled.  No sad music played.  It was just me, the puppies and my staid emotions as I carried the dried bouquet of roses to the back of our my house.  Without fanfare, I grabbed the bunch by the stems, crunched them together as the brittle peddles disintegrated, and tossed them onto the compost pile.  Of course, because nothing goes quite as plan, a few roses didn’t make the trip onto the pile but I didn’t feel like walking down into the ditch to gather them together again.  Where they landed, they’ll stay.  It was done.

That bouquet of very dead and dried roses has sat on her side of the bathroom now for years.  It’s uncomfortable to call that out – years.  But sat they did, right next to her driver’s license and the cute little hat she wore after she lost all her hair.  Now the bouquet is in the refuse pile, the driver’s license is in a special-memories box, and her cute little hat is in the closet.  It’s amazing how the absence of a few small things can paint a room empty.

Now the bathroom truly looks like a bachelor’s bathroom – empty (just don’t open any drawers.)

How is it that I’ve been ok with a bouquet of roses that has been sitting in the same spot for years?  My psychologist, the one I’ve seen weekly since Maggie started getting very ill, calls this state of inertia “business as usual.”  In my professional life, I’ve never stood for business as usual.  Standing still too long kill opportunities, breeds laziness, and stifles innovation.  Yet, in my personal life, I had a bouquet of roses sitting on the counter in my bathroom for years – more than 850 days.  (Today, by the way, marks 856 days since Maggie’s Angel Day – 6 days longer than she was officially sick.)

How many other things in my life are “business as usual” that are keeping me stuck?  What other virtual bouquets are around the house I’ve been looking over now for years?  Am I ready to see them?  Better yet, am I ready to move them?

Today, business as usual became new business – the business of change.