Seeing life from a different vantage point

Last night we attended a Boat Parade party at one of our friend's houses. Though it was spectacular looking out over the Harbour at all the boats that were festively decorated for the Christmas season, I couldn't help but feel nostalgic.
I turned to my husband and said, “Wow, it really looks different from here."
Never turning to look at me, he said, "That's because the way you look at the world has changed."
I didn't answer him. I didn't know how to respond to his comment because it hit me in the gut. I looked out at the boats, across the Harbour to try to find my old office which was on the opposite side to where we were. I turned to look at the people at the party. I looked up at the sky, at the stars and reflected on my husband’s comment.
I didn’t' find an answer until this morning when I woke up to find an email from one of my former work colleagues and it was then that I realised why this statement was bothering me. It had nothing to do with my husband. It had all to do with me.
Last year and the year before that my former company hosted a family night for the Boat Parade where we invited all of our brokers and their families to join our families to eat, receive gifts from Santa, watch the boat parade and mingle. Our balcony overlooked the center of the Harbour so it was a premier location to view the boat parade and it was always a success. Brokers and their families looked forward to this event.
But this year, my division was gone, disbanded. Everyone had gone their separate ways. I couldn’t even see the old building where our event was held when I tried to find it across the Harbour. And I was standing higher up, on a completely different side of the Harbour, at a completely different viewpoint from where I had stood last year and the year before.
What I realised this morning was rather than feeling sad and out of place about how differently I felt last night, I rejoiced in the gift that the Universe gave me last night. And the gift was that life really is the same, the same events occur but sometimes we are at a different vantage point in order to see that though circumstances may change for us, life still moves on and it is up to us to appreciate what was but move on to what is so that we can still enjoy the beauty of where we are today.
I wrote to my former colleague and said to her, " I went to the a Boat Parade Party last night and looked across the water at our old building and thought about how quickly life can change and how different it is one year later. Take nothing for granted. Be thankful for the blessings we have. And live life fully."
A note to us all, no matter the circumstances we may find ourselves in, all we are being given is an opportunity to view life from a different perspective. Nothing more. Nothing less. And once we see this, life takes us in the direction we are meant to be in. For this lesson, I am truly grateful.