Moving On

Life is a journey - I've written about that before. Sometimes the path forward seems clear, sometimes murky; sometimes one feels anticipation and excitement about what might be just around the next bend, and sometimes one feels a sense of dread about what might be lurking around the corner. But whatever one feels, one has to keep moving on or risk all sorts of negatives: stagnation, rust, being stuck in a rut, stunting one's growth, rotting in place, being bored and boring. Life goes on and so must we.

Obviously, it is easier to move on when excitement and adventure beckon from the road ahead. But I used to dream regularly about going into a tunnel and in order to come out on the other side, I would have to keep going forward, even though the tunnel seemed to get smaller and smaller and I began to have trouble breathing. I would wake up panicked and literally out of breath. The dreams stopped when I began a regimen of daily asthma medication; apparently my difficulty breathing was real even as it was playing out in my dreams.

I am at another of those places in the journey where I don't know where I'm going but I'm trying to enjoy the view as I wander along anyway. I would like to feel purposeful, but that seems kind of false, not real, maybe even being in denial. (I worry about being in denial fairly often. One can read that two ways - I worry often or I might be in denial often - and probably I mean both of them.) Maybe my purpose is to try to keep moving and take the scenic route as much as possible. Which is actually the way I would like to "be purposeful" at all times, even when I've got a schedule and an agenda and a real sense of where I am headed. To keep moving and take the scenic route whenever possible seems a good plan all the time.

At any rate, I'd like to give my self permission to go slowly as I wander so as to be able to keep my bearings, to hear and see the markers that are familiar to me. The sound of the birds in the mornings and the tree frogs in the evenings, laughter, music, prayer, a smile and a touch from loved ones, reliable noises and feelings and emotional locations to serve as signposts and trail marks, to remind me of my humanity and my connectedness to the world, to family, to God.