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The Winding Path
Have you ever found yourself doing something you don’t want to do, being less than you really are just to keep the peace, and feel so worn out and so lost that you’ve almost lost the sense of who you are and the energy it takes to turn around and find your way? Well that’s what happened to me not so very long ago. It’s a situation that’s pitifully easy to get into. So easy that sometimes you don’t even realise that’s where you are until you’re right in the middle of it. Maybe you don’t realise until you get a shock or a wakeup call or a moment that tells you, this is not who I am. This is not what I do. I need to change.
I recognised this pretty early on. It didn’t take long to notice the square peg round hole-ness of the situation. The question was ‘what next’ and truthfully I didn’t know. I was blank. I wanted to do, I wanted to be, I wanted truth, values, honesty and much, much more. I wanted to march to my own drum and create my own reality, attend to my dreams and be responsible for my own successes and failures.
My present location cemented a great deal for me. I couldn’t abide it, but like many of the similar situations in my life, it taught me what my limits were, where my boundaries lay and what was and was not acceptable to me. In some ways, experiencing the diametric opposite to my own values taught me more than experiencing a situation that would not have challenged me in that way. By putting myself in a place which caused me unhappiness, has forced me to evaluate my life and to sit down, look deep inside myself and say ‘woman up Sarah, and decide what the hell you DO want’. It meant that I couldn’t coast along in comfort for another year or six months. It made me say ‘now or never’. Never wasn’t an option so Now it became.
Yet the question remained.
It confused me. It vexed me. It caused a lot of soul searching, waking up in the middle of the night sweating for fear that I was nothing more than a walking superiority complex waiting for a place to unleash myself. It caused me desperation and more than a few tears. But slowly, my list became more defined and I found that I recognised what I dreamt of. I began to polish away at it until it became clear and crisp and real. And suddenly there it was: more than a life path, it was MY life path – all bright and shining and just waiting for me to step into it.
Now that I know what I want, the steps to take me there don’t seem so immense and unachievable. It seems like a small thing. A step by step journey. It can happen. It will happen. I can see it now. Yes, there are things that need to be done before I can step into that new life but it’s ready for me, just as I am ready for it. The confusion is gone now. It’s exciting, it’s a little bit scary and it’s a monster of a risk. Those are all things I can deal with because I have a vision of what I want. Everything is surmountable now because I’m not walking blind through my life.
This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. It’s exactly this moment where I have a choice between staying as I am or beginning the path to the person I could be. It’s a decision between myself and my future. A moment where I embrace ALL that I am rather than just a part of it and a moment where I stand up, throw myself wide open, and say follow your dreams, whatever they are. However fantasical, however humble, however big or small: follow them. Open your heart to you deepest desires. Don’t be afraid. Don’t think you aren’t enough. Don’t give up. Don’t be held back by the limitations other people impose on you. Be everything you imagined yourself being when you were a child, and then be more.
Loving you.
