12/03/2019
Sometimes you find yourself at a crossroads in your life. It's not a place you recognise because you have never been here before. You feel helpless because you look around you and you don't recognise the landscape. You wait but nothing happens. You feel alone, angry, sad and unsure.
You look behind you, and everything that once seemed so familiar no longer fits the picture. You feel even more alone. You recognise the people around you but they seem to be perfectly in control of whatever it is they are doing. Many of them - those you once felt close to because you thought they cared - aren't really interested in the uncertainty that has suddenly filled your life so unexpectedly.
They're not at a crossroads in their lives. Not yet. If you're fortunate to have someone to lean on, who helps you to balance on the ground that is constantly unsteady now beneath your feet, then you are truly blessed. Even if you don't have such a person, you need to slow down and wait, rather than give into the urgency and tendency to give up and fall apart.
Other people will tell you "you'll be fine", and "you're looking great"; but so often they just sound like flat words. They may mean well but they rarely feel the depth of this pain you are living through. That's because a time in your life is ending for you that others may not share, and you are being forced to accept a 'new' time. The crossroads is where you are maybe now, but it won't be where you'll be forever; even though you're scared of what lies ahead, and terrified by what has happened to you - whatever that is.
You never thought you would end up at this crossroads, which feels like it is dividing your life to the point where you absolutely believe you are falling apart. The solid blocks that were once the foundation of a life that you kept adding to for as long as you can remember, and believed would continue forever, have now sunk into a swamp of loss and uncertainty; and that once-solid existence feels unrecognisable.
Part of you thinks that your life is over; but it's not. You might despise whatever it is that has brought you to this crossroads but your life is not over. It's just that the phase you had become so used to and comfortable with, or maybe not, over a long stretch of time has ended.
The people you thought would support you are gone now because maybe they belonged to that former period in your life. Maybe they will come back when they have decided on where their own crossroads will take them, or maybe they won't. The truth is there will be many crossroads.
The people who are still with you know what's happening because they recognise where you are. Maybe they will always be here, maybe they won't.
The problem is that most people are resistant to change - any sort of change whatsoever. Most people prefer to keep things exactly as they are, because they are afraid of change. Even though the changes they witness may not be immediately affecting their own lives, they just can't bring themselves to change in any way. It's easier if 'things' just stay the same.
Sometimes, when you find yourself facing a crossroads in your life that you never imagined would happen to you, you just have to accept that the only guarantee in this life is that there are no guarantees, and to try to move forward. Some of us can get stuck at a crossroads. That's when it's worth reminding ourselves that time keeps moving, even if we don't; and none of us knows how much time we have.
