Life has many twists and turns, leading us, sometimes exhuberantly and sometimes reluctantly, down a rocky, treacherous, challenging and rewarding path that is unique to each one of us. How we walk that path is a function of the choices we make. Do we walk it in solitude or gregariously? With hope or such fatalistic realism that we cannot bear any single step? Do we accept the path or challenge every meandering, every juncture, every fork?

Never did I expect to be where I am today. Or yesterday. Or tomorrow. I plan, I dream, I imagine. I just don't expect. I really don't plan as much as I used to, somehow freed of the burden of thinking everything must be within my control. Perhaps that change began when I married. Perhaps it began when Kirk and I took a year off to travel. Perhaps it began earlier, later or even somewhere in the middle. At any rate, I find that planning is just not something I dwell on. The need to control things no longer festers, an unfulfilled urge dictating my every step. A step is just that - a step.

Today I took a reluctant step - one completely out of my control. I don't know where the step will lead - the path has many trails snaking across it. Will one of those trails become the path, leaving the path behind as a mere trail? Of course, such things are possible. Will I notice the deviation if suddenly, a small trail is subtly transformed into my path? Will I miss the old path? Perhaps it will meld into a single, uninterrupted journey - with time or distance. Perhaps it will be only a series of shorter journeys, littered with memories and marked with milestones.

It is, after all, my path to walk, view and remember as only I can. A piece of me is missing today - a piece that I dearly yearn for. I meander down my path looking hopefully at each little trail, seeking the one that will lead me back to wholeness, confident that the trail is close by, waiting to be discovered and used.

Labels: Reflections