Tonight... I'm not quite sure there is just one quote that satisfies this topic. I've heard too many songs about this to pick one to represent my thoughts, feelings, emotions, frustrations, confusion, and determination.
Picture this for me: You have to cross a bridge. You don't know where exactly it's leading to and you can't really see the other end, but you have a feeling you have to. I'm not talking no Pittsburgh bridge. I'm talking a wooden, janky bridge between two mountains. So, what's your first instinct? To stay. You are comfortable there. You know what you have. But what if theres something new, exciting, possibly dare I say better for you across the bridge? I can guarantee you if you cross that bridge, it will be scary, shaky, narrow, wobbly, uncomfortable and potentially a life-dependant quest. If you cross, you have to give up what you have. What do you do? Stick with what is comfortable with you? Take a leap and see what could be better for you? As you stand at that end of the bridge, think of this: sometimes we have to let go of what we have....to see if there was something worth holding onto. Seems a bit harsh, but more bona fide than anything. So let go. Cross the bridge. Hang on. Too many times we don't talk about something or don't do something because it's not comfortable for us. It's too much of a new idea for us and we just are not comfortable acting upon it. But we already know how to hang on to something and how to love something. It's letting go and exploring what is in the future that we all need to learn how to do.
So you cross the bridge. You thought you were going to die, but you didn't. Of course. Now what is your first instinct once you stepped foot on the other side? Look back. We all do this. We accomplish something we were hesitant at first, something we saw as a challenge, and certainly an obstacle, to say the least. We look back on something that we gave up and that we were comfortable with for so long. Now we start to second-guess ourselves. It's human nature. We convinced ourselves that this is better, that this will pay off, that this is what we chose and this is what we were meant to do. If it wasn't...we wouldn't have accepted the challenge to cross the bridge. Now we're skeptical. Did I make the right choice? What if this isn't better for me? Can I go back? (no stupid, you almost just died crossing!) So now that you've come to the 4th stage of change (following pre-contemplation, contemplation, and preparation/determination) of "action" and maintenance, you have to burn the bridge. Alright, so you don't have anything to burn it with, whatever, but now you've spent this whole time standing there looking back at where you came from, across the bridge, with your back facing what you were pursuing. Why cross the bridge in the first place? The more you go back to contemplation, the closer you play with the 5th stage that every counselor dreads.......relapse.
"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us", said by Joseph somethingoranother. Buddy Joe knows what I'm talking about. We have these preconceived, set-in-stone, ideas of our life. We play along with it for so long until we think that something is wrong and we need a change. Or often, we find we don't know what is next in life. This is the time to let go of the concrete life that we have envisioned ourselves for so long. We should understand that no matter how concrete our life plan is, every stone gets its sand blown, washed, chipped away. Knowing that nature overpowers our thoughts of life, the best thing at this point is to accept that life is waiting for us, we can't be waiting for the next step in our own idea of how our life needs to be.
Often we hear the saying when one door closes, another door opens. Or, every exit we make is a new entry into somewhere else. When we enter into a new door, or close an existing door where we were, we do it for a reason. We don't enter doors into somewhere we don't know because its fun, we do it for a purpose. What is that purpose for crossing the bridge back there? Whatever it is, we can't lose sight of it. We can't. We learn things in life by doing things with unknown consequences. Now, granted, not all of these types of actions are positive, encouraging life-learning moments, but generally speaking, that's the outcome. Regardless, we learn a life lesson, positive or negative. The reason for crossing a bridge into a new adventure? To see what life has for us. Yes, it may shake your world and the simplest thoughts in the middle of the quiet night can bring tears streaming down your face every night, but it's emotions over action. It's normal. Our emotions overpower us in almost anything we do. Hungry? Eat! Sad? Cry (for some, eat more!). Angry? Yell (or beat something/someone up). Anxious? We second think. It's normal. But all of this aside, we learn life lessons from taking leaps of faith into things that may not exactly be what we expected. The more obstacles we come by in life, the more wisdom we pick up on the way. Think of it this way... if life was so incredibly dull in which we rarely came across obstacles, hardships, and challenges, what would we learn about life when we did come into contact with those times? We'd be clueless! We would be an army of dumb frenchmen standing in the woods clueless, wondering why we're getting bullets thrusted in our heads. Bad example. The point is, I can't help but think that the bridges we cross are for a reason and whether or not we realize it at the moment or even after, I think we do it out of instinct and those instincts come from somewhere worthy inside ourselves. From that, we learn about ourselves, others, and life in general.
I don't know why I encountered the things I did in my life. At 21 years young, I feel I know only a little bit about life and a fraction of how to deal with some of life's challenges. I don't know if I'll ever be a good enough social worker to help others in situations I couldn't even fathom to be in. But I do know that I've gone to hell and back, believed in Jesus, kicked him in the face and ran away, and then ran back into His arms. Just from that sentence alone, I can see life lessons that I learned from doing things in life out of instinct and from things in my life I didn't have any control over. I have to believe that most things in my early life shaped me who I am today. Part of this was letting go of some things. Some of us think holding onto some things makes us stronger, but often its letting go. And quite frankly, I think too many, myself included, spend too much time looking in the past. Given the bridge analogy, once you cross that bridge, you can't believe it, you are skeptical, second-guessing yourself and before you know it, you've spent just as much time looking back at where you just came from. It defeats the purpose, almost. I think one problem with gazing too frequently and too much into the past is that we may turn around to find that the future has run out on us. We can never turn back the pages of time. Your book of life is what it is. You write your chapters of life for people to learn about you. It is not your place to erase the past. We can't do that. Mentally, we may not even be able to erase the past. It is what it is. Though we may wish to relive a happy moment in the past time, or say goodbye just one last time, as I wish so many times I could to someone, we never can. The thought of having a chance to go back into those chapters of my life and rewrite the ending of some of them chills me to the bone. When I think of being able to say goodbye just one....last....goodbye, my whole world stops, noises are nonexistent, feelings are numb, and I'm in a daze 4 years back that makes my whole body and soul feel so fragile a brisk wind could shatter me. But time keeps chugging along and as we continue to live our lives and take chances that we take, let us remind ourselves that the past is history and we will learn from crossing bridges in our lives.
Because the sands of time continue to fall, and we can't turn the hourglass over.
