When Change Comes to Town

On endings and new beginnings

For the last eleven years, Thursday nights have found us downtown, sitting at our local watering hole, Constant Spring. Though Jim and I never dated during our courtship, our Thursday nights at Constant Spring became our regular married life date. We would leave our busy day’s work behind, spruce ourselves up a bit and head downtown for one beer in our personal Mug Club mug, made every year by a different local potter. We’d always eat a basket of popcorn with our chosen beer, sometimes add a Pad Thai salad or Bourbon burger to the mix, and start our weekly discussion.

During the week, we would save specific topics of conversation for that night when we knew we would be sitting at the bar with no interruptions. Things didn’t always go as planned. Sometimes our hour and a half there would be filled with friends stopping on their way out to give us a hug, share their latest news or ask a question. Those nights, we would go home, happy with our interactions with friends, knowing our topic would be handled on the following Thursday night.

On those bar stools, we dreamed up all sorts of ideas, trips and plans. Sitting at the bar, we hatched menus for my bakery, made up an itinerary for an epic trip to Scotland, hashed out the nitty gritty of family relationships, grieved the loss of friends and family, laughed at our foibles, analyzed our dreams and came up with a name for my cheese shop. Those few hours each week gave us a place to ponder over the past week and allowed us to look to the future. And, over the years, and changing staff, it was nice to have a place where we were recognized as regulars.

During Covid, we ate and drank outside, even on the chilliest of nights. When my sister and her husband moved to town, they regularly joined us as well. And though that brought change, it was still a time to sit and enjoy a beer and time together.

This week brought another change. Our every-Thursday-night spot suddenly closed. Our personalized mugs are waiting to be picked up. As with all change, there will be adjustments. We will have to figure out a new spot and a new routine. We might be sad but we have to look to the future and see what new things lie ahead. But we know from experience that change will keep happening and, if we can be flexible and go with the flow, there are usually better things to come. To be unseated from a routine can throw us off course but it often opens up possibilities that we had never thought of before.

We were lucky to have the perfect place to go to every Thursday night for eleven years. (Thank you, Constant Spring!) And we will just have to see where we end up on Thursday nights in the next few years. But the one thing we do know is that the one constant in our human lives is change. And we might as well embrace it as we move ahead.