About five weeks ago, I noticed the skin of our pet lizard(蜥蜴) was growing dusty. It1me.2later, our lizard3from its tank with its old skin flowing behind it.
I didn't think about it much until a morning when I4my favorite teapot off the table. It burst into hundreds of pieces. As I5the mess, I wondered6we had been breaking so many things over the months.
The destruction started three months ago. It was my husband's birthday. He had just7his job. The uncertainty was wearing on us, so I wanted to do something8.
"Let's make a cake for Dad!" I cried.
My kids screamed with9. We baked, iced and sprinkled for most of the day. Candles on the cake! Balloons on the walls! Flowers on the table! Before my husband came back home, my daughter climbed up to10a glass vase from a high shelf. It fell and11beside the cake. She sobbed12as I threw the cake away.
Three days ago, we watched the Michael Jordan documentary(纪录片) series The Last Dance. The poignancy(酸楚) of Jordan retiring from his beloved basketball to play baseball and what had pushed him to make such a tough decision took me by surprise. As I watched him13his basketball uniform and replace it with a baseball uniform, I saw him leaving
14the layer that no longer served him, just as our lizard had.15of them chose the moment that had transformed them. But they had to live with who they were after everything was different. I16that we have to learn to leave the17behind.
The beginning of change is18. The19is tiring. Damage changes us before we are ready. Jordan said that no matter how it ends, it starts with20. With our tender, hopeful skin, that is where we begin.
