Horizon rising up to meet the purple dawn
Dust demon screamin’
Bring an eagle to lead me on
For in my heart I carry such a heavy load
Here I am, on man’s road
~ The Last Unicorn
or
You know when you come across one of those empty shell people, and you think “What the hell happened to you?” Well there came a time in each one of those lives where they are standing at a crossroads… someplace where they had to decide whether to turn left or right.
~ Under the Tuscan Sun
This summer I have found myself at a crossroads. They are places of great power, crossroads; places where stories change, songs are dreamt, souls are sold and decisions are made that will forever change the course of your life. They are the junctions of the train-tracks, they are the places where we must pause and take stock and decide what we are and are not willing to accept.
I’ve been faced with decisions, some bigger than I ever could have anticipated before I opened the door and welcomed them in. Would I have pulled on that handle if I had known what was waiting on the other side? I think so, as difficult as the road I’m walking currently is, I can see the destination, and it’s a good one. Once that door was opened, the sunshine started to ease its way through, the fresh air came and the cobwebs and previously unnoticed shadows began to clear. The light stings my eyes and sometimes they may water a bit, but yes, I would always welcome the sunshine.
I do not believe in making yourself miserable so that “one day” you will be happy, that is foolish; but I also do not believe instant gratification, just as I do not believe in instant forgiveness; trust needs to be earned, problems need to be addressed, resolution and forgiveness (including, perhaps most importantly, self-forgiveness) is a mutually given gift, not an assumption. It should be respected as such. I have become better over the years at drawing my boundaries in the sand, lines which I will allow no one to cross, and while sometimes I have been dearly tempted to erase those boundaries, I know that that way lies only self-doubt and ultimately self-loathing, I’ve been down that road, I was lucky enough to come back from it. From that point on, if people wanted to accept me, they had to do so with respect to those lines in the sand.
That is what crossroads are about for me; maintaining and respecting the lines in the sand. Giving myself space to act on them and redraw them if necessary.
Sometimes, you have to play the long game. Sometimes, you do what everyone else says is wrong because your heart knows it’s right. Just knows it, at bone level. But roads are not always easy…mirages are frequent, and traintracks can shift suddenly. The trick is to accept that.
And to know yourself well enough to realize how you personally deal with crossroads decisions. Much as it sometimes might sting, much as it is sometimes difficult, you have to ultimately do what’s best to protect yourself. For me? I pull back; I become an oyster, much like one of my always present book characters:
“There are stories that are true, in which each individual’s tale is unique and tragic, and the worst of the tragedy is that we have heard it before, and we cannot allow ourselves to feel it too deeply. We build a shell around it like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit, coating it with smooth pearl layers in order to cope. This is how we walk and talk and function, day in, day out, immune to others’ pain and loss. If it were to touch us it would cripple us or make saints of us; but, for the most part, it does not touch us. We cannot allow it to.” ~ American Gods
So I become an oyster, for a while, just a little while. Comparatively, sometimes it takes hours, sometimes days, in one extreme case, a crossroads took me years. But the thing I need to remember and that those around me need to know –– is that I don’t stop living as a result, I don’t become miserable or any kind of an extreme really, I just become cautious, and more importantly I always come out of it, and ultimately, once the repairs are finished, and the work is done, things are always stronger than they were before.
I have learned to be very patient with myself when it comes to crossroads.
Situations end, circumstances, relationships, they change. I have learned to let them change, to accept that change as it is taking place without forcing it to move faster than it comfortably can, while keeping an eye perhaps, on the next station along the tracks.
And hell, no matter how serious things get? No matter which path you’re walking? Enjoy the ride!