" The man who is unwilling to accept the axiom that he who chooses one path is denied the others must try to persuade himself, I suppose, that the logical thing to do is to remain at the crossroads."
-dag hammarskjold
My biggest downfall in life has always been remaining at the crossroads. We do it in dating. I do it in dating, anyway. You probably do it as well, I'd bet. If I bet. Which I don't. But if I did I would have $75 to collect from my high school english teachers since I didn't get married after my freshman year at BYU. I thought they knew me better than that. I thought a lot of things.
Perhaps that is what keeps me at the crossroads: I think. I was telling Cindy today about a question that a group of my friends asked and answered the other night. It was, "if you could go back in time and give anything to your 8-year-old self, what would it be?" Think, I thought. What would it be? The jury was out. The circle went the other direction. My neighbor said something profound, which reminded me why I love her so much as a friend while it made me wish I didn't go directly after her. Sort of like in sunday school when we were talking about trials and someone raised their hand and said they were grateful for health as they'd struggled with cancer this summer. Next? Beuhller?
Anyway, my gift to my 8-year-old self was a sense of reckless abandon. That may sound odd to a lot of people, but I was in dire need of one. I still am. For a lot of people, that would spell disaster - for me it brings balance. I've often wondered why we try to find people to date who are as similar to us as possible, instead of people who aren't our carbon copies but balance us in ways we didn't realize we needed to be balanced. Not that we shouldn't be balanced by ourselves. You know what I mean.
I practiced today by running down the mountain.
(I still stopped on the corners.)
I am afraid to make decisions I can't un-make. Like death. And marriage. But they still need to be made.
1 comment:
Death and marriage.
There is an old adage that says "wedding and death comes from above" Which means that directly, we do not decide about those things or in other words that "the right time" is decided by God. I particularly do not necessarily agree, but sometimes it looks like it works that way.
I prefer to believe that we decide about us, but staying at the crossroads sometimes it may be convenient, sometimes it may not.
There is always one caveat: staying at a crossroad is going nowhere.
Most people are afraid to make decisions, so it is kind of normal.
Stop at the red light, but go on when it turns to green.
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