More What I Had In Mind...

I have sort of repeatedly said, falling all to bits and piecing yourself back together can be a fascinating process.

(It can also be overwhelming and exhausting, but that’s not the point of this blog post.)

I’m one of those people who likes to know where life is headed, and I always have been. When I was a kid I knew that I would grow up to have girls and live in the exact house that I live in. My life unfolded exactly as I planned it all out, down to the age I was when I got married and when I had each of my girls.

Then, you know, life diverted. Two roads diverged into a wood and all-only not quite the sad longing of Frost, but more of being shoved onto a path that you weren’t expecting.

Of course, in the beginning, I panicked. I mean, I was wrong about the cornerstone of this plan, I was wrong in where I laid my trust and my future, and nothing seemed like it was ever going to make sense ever again. You can’t trust yourself because, after all, it was your trusting nature that got you into this predicament.

Three years on, I still have a lot to come to terms with. I’m not done figuring all of this out yet.

But, about six months ago, a path opened up in front of me that I wasn’t expecting. My initial reaction was to pull back and question everything and not trust myself at all to make any sort of decision. But I did manage a tentative step and braced myself for sure heartbreak and so far, we are still walking and talking and figuring things out.

I don’t exactly have a plan. I have a sort of broad outline, and we exist inside of as much margin as we can. But what I found myself telling someone recently is this-this part of my life, this strange path that I have found myself on in the past half a year or so-I am loving it because it wasn’t a part of the original design. I wasn’t planning on life taking a turn that was quite so unexpected and out of the blue.

“There is pleasure in the pathless wood-“ I don’t know that I quite agree with Byron on that, I’m much too in love with my routine to just throw all caution to the wind. But I can say with all certainty that sometimes spontaneity can be just what your heart was longing for all along, that opening yourself up can be frightening and fun all at the same time, and that finding yourself existing outside of the lines can be just the thing that eases the worry that you have that you haven’t the foggiest idea what you are doing.

Piecing yourself back together is a delicate dance in which you get to question every last little thing. But perhaps the person that emerges is worth this strange journey.