As I age, I see the blessing of the unknown, of not being able to imagine what could possibly lie ahead of us on our paths. For if we were to foretell each scraped knee, beautiful letdown, pitted stomach, and fearsome drops in our roads, we would lack the courage to see them through. But our unawareness of the dangers ahead, perhaps naïve optimism that one change will bring bliss, keeps us going, keeps us growing, keeps us traveling down our needed paths.
But it is along those paths that we find ourselves. We find ourselves in the falls, in the screams and shouts at no one else, in the havoc wreaked by man and nature all around us. So many times, if I had known what was to come next, I would have stopped. I would have turned around. I might have tried like hell to change my road’s bend. But then I wouldn’t be who I am today. I wouldn’t be a woman filled with an empathy, trust, distrust, and awareness I sorely lacked before; but which make me better, which unveil weaknesses and strengths I couldn’t know without first passing through the events I can never forget.
So perhaps our naivety, our inability to ever truly plan ahead, is our saving grace. Without the unexpected, the jarring realities that set in too late, the valleys and climbs of emotions, the breaking down on the dirt floor, we wouldn’t reach an end worth holding. I don’t know what my next day, week, or end will be. But each day that passes, I hope I continue to find more reason in the unreasonable, to find more faith in what has to remain unexplained.
–Written by Sandy Heights
Thoughts of This 