Sometimes in life you catch a break and you seem to be riding the perfect wave unexpectedly and everything that could possibly go right is going right. Then the rug is ripped right out from under you. Your head is in a spin and you are left wondering what happened.
Then you start on a journey trying too hard to find the answers.
Navigating this foggy path is daunting to say the least. When we try too hard to find answers, sometimes we miss the ones that are right under our noses. Intuition often works best when we aren’t trying too hard, when we stop trying to figure out the “cursed how’s or why’s.”
As adults we grow up and think we have all the answers, that we have the world figured out, only to discover later that we don’t and that we probably never will have it all figured out. When we are born we literally dive into life headfirst and it is a bumpy ride from there on out. Life never turns out exactly as we expect it to. Sometimes it is much less, sometimes it is much more, and usually it is quite different from what we imagined it would be.
Left a bit bewildered and suddenly unsure, the last thing I felt like doing this weekend was putting on a happy face and facing the world as if all was right in my world when in fact nothing felt right. But I’d made a commitment to share in a friend’s birthday celebration over lunch and I knew I had to go. The one thing I was really looking forward to was the drive there, it was something I could use to my advantage. About an hour out of Cape Town, I would head out on the road towards the small town of Riebeek Kasteel, driving through the valleys and taking in the beauty all around me. Nature soothes me when I’m out of sync, maybe somewhere along the way I could find some clarity in the confusion that suddenly seemed to creep in like a thick fog.
With the birthday gift on the seat next to me, I glanced at my watch and then the road ahead.
I should be there in about an hour.
With the sun shining and my music playing I began to drive.
My car, as it often is, is my sanctuary as I drive.
I can breathe.
I can be still.
I go inwards.
I took it slow, determined to enjoy rather than endure.
As the suburbs began to change from houses packed together to sprawling open fields of lush green and bright yellow flowers I began to let go of perfect. I began to let go of control. I began to let go of expectations. I reminded myself to be authentic and to let others be authentic, too. I realised I must make room for surprises and to give myself (and others) permission to change my/their minds, to realise that maybe even if I unknowingly did or said something to upset someone else, that I made a mistake and that’s ok.
Change, especially when it’s unexpected, brings us to the edge of what we know, waiting for us to plunge into what we have yet to discover. I’ve been where I’ve been and I am where I am; what’s changing now is where I hope to be.
This place, the softening edge where the light meets the dark, where what is known slips from the top of my shoulders, trickles down the back of my arms and drips poignantly off my fingertips; the last moment before a free-fall, where my breath becomes sharp and caged, longing for the richness of an exhale, this is where I am as I question where I want to go from here.
I reach a point in the road where I think I am close but I can’t be certain.
Something feels wrong.
I can’t quite find the road that I am meant to be on as I pass through another little town.
My GPS is telling me to go one way but my gut is telling me something else.
I follow the GPS because it’s supposed to be right.
Another 8km’s later, my GPS is telling me to take a dirt road but it’s now going to take me another 48 minutes to get to my destination. But I know I’m closer than that.
I turn around and begin to head back to the small town to find the road I missed.
Life is like that sometimes. It’s unpredictable and fluid, always keeping you guessing about what lies ahead. Just when you think you know the ending, life throws in a curve.
But that’s what makes things in life worth pursuing and life worth embracing.
As I drove I reminded myself that by putting value only in the end result, I have been ignoring the small victories along the way. I had lost sight of one of life’s simple truths: The journey is more important than the destination.
I blinked and looked straight up at the road ahead.
The curve in the road beckoned and I drove toward it, ready to embrace what lay just out of sight.
By being willing to not have all the answers, to ask more questions, and to allow them to be unresolved, stirs the beginning of a deeper wisdom and understanding within myself. I still long to understand, but I know that’s its ok if I don’t.
I long to reach out to make to make sure everything is ok because that’s just my nature.
I tried but was shut out.
So all I can do now is step back and allow what ever is to be
Trusting the solution will come.
In the blindness of this change, I am finding clarity. As I continue into the unknown, my inner knowing becomes more and more apparent.
Sometimes you have to turn the confusion into something beautiful. If we don’t make space for mistakes to happen we may be missing out on some of the most unexpected beauty and creative solutions we’re capable of. Because sometimes we think we want a monster when, really, we have no idea of the beauty we are about to create.
I remind myself to embrace change… It is our greatest teacher.
A short while later I arrived at my destination.
My smile feeling a tiny little bit more real.
My soul a tiny little bit more at peace.
I felt a little bit more ready to face the world.
Accepting the unresolved questions, because they lead me to my next creation, to growth and change, to new beginnings.
Somehow, I continue to connect the dots.
Instead of seeing the rug being pulled from under me, I’m learning how to dance on a flying carpet.
~ All Photos By Me ~
Walking4Air 