Tearing Down Walls and Discovering The Path

Last updated on January 11, 2017

The Challenge of Reality

Contemplation of my own life has kept me quiet for a while. 2016 was an interesting year of learning and change for this old girl. And as I look back on it, I am thankful.

I truly am thankful for the trials presented and the learning that has gone down. How else would I be who I am were it not for the life shifts and professional challenges I have faced? I understand that I am presented with exactly what I need. For if I am unable to do what I need to do to triumph or move past a particular challenge, then it is time for me to go around or leave behind what confronts and confounds me or has slipped through the side gate into my house or has stabbed me in the back.

You see, I am a realist and it is not in me to deny, decry, or lie about what is ahead of me or what my responsibility is in it all. I know. I know who I am, I know what I am. And while I could sit back and say, it’s all good. I know it is not.

Even as I type this, the latest gauntlet has been dropped before me – a chronic plumbing problem which has led to two clogged sinks, a leaking pipe, a cracked toilet and the need to replace a bathroom wall where mold has found a home. Damn. As my neighbor – who is also my plumber just said, “nothing is ever easy.” I have to believe that I may not thrive if it were – if it were easy.

The love

As I look back on my last year and the love that has been poured upon me by friends and family, I can only consider myself lucky. Truly lucky —

December was a time for family and friends and I was able to see and hug those most important to me during this month (most of them, anyway) and I happily said goodbye to 2016 and rang in the New Year with people I love dearly, who have stood by me in times of dread and heartache, who have lifted me and brushed the tears away, and presented me with incredible opportunities of professional growth. And I was lucky enough to witness a testament of marital love as some of my best friends sealed their love in a New Year’s Eve wedding celebration.

I would be lying if I said it was a breeze. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking of my own broken heart and wedding just 19 months earlier. A doomed union, though I never would have guessed. But it was and guess what? Life goes on.

Those who know me, know I am incapable of lying or hiding such things. They are written in the lines on my face. And in the beats of my heart.

Which does beat on. 

The Path

There are those for whom I have built walls. Many of these walls were built upon misconceptions, lies that others tell, or circumstances I, myself, created. 2017 is my year to tear down those walls, deconstructing someone else’s reality to build my own, laying those stones and bricks under my feet which once were walls and creating the new path I choose to walk – a path of truth and light, a path of joy, of love and friendship. A path of well being. Some have asked why, why now and are you not tired of being hurt? Indeed, I am – but far worse than loving and trusting others is loving and trusting no one.

My path is before me. One I happily walk.