Today’s reflection comes from I Saw You Dancing.
#reverb12 Day 14: The path that brought you here?
Whew. There have been so many paths. So many detours and winding roads and wonderful distractions that have happened that led me here. It’s not always a good time thinking back on them, but I remind myself that the paths that brought me here were the paths I was supposed to travel. All those missteps, all those dead ends, all the twists and turns that seemed like they were getting me nowhere…each footstep the one that I was supposed to take–because if I was supposed to go a different way, that’s what would have happened.
If Amber and I had never come to Mississippi to graduate school, if I hadn’t decided to pursue a doctorate, if I hadn’t pursued an internship with the writing project, if there hadn’t been those failed relationships…if, if, if, if.
This year has been a ton of new paths, although in many respects they’ve been littered with familiar landmarks, like hiking a new trail in a park you’ve been to before. You know the terrain – mostly – you’re just seeing it from different angles. Like I’ve been in education before. I know education, but this realm of education? New for me. Matt and I have been together awhile…even living together for a bit of it. But married? A new ball game. In many ways it feels the same, but in others, it’s totally different.
There have been missteps along the way, both professionally and personally. I’ve been feeling my way along, often on my own but also with the support and help of my friends, family, and coworkers, and there hasn’t been anything so severe that I couldn’t come back from it. That’s one of the great comforts in life, and one of the things that I have to remind myself of when I’m stuck in my negative spiral–there are rarely missteps so terrible or cliffs so steep that we cannot find our way back. Not that it isn’t painful when we go over the edge or tumble down an embankment. We can find our way back or locate another path or wait for someone to pull us back up. Reorientation is always possible. There is hope for tomorrow.
From southwest Missouri to Pennsylvania to Reno to Mississippi to Kentucky and back again…each step, each person…has led me to this place. There are things to look back on and not be proud of, things I wouldn’t do again, but all of those things brought me to here. I can’t regret the experiences that have helped create this life in spite of its challenges, is incredibly amazing.
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