The Crossroads of Life

I got to thinking about those milepost events that happen in everyone’s life. You know the ones where life as you have come to know it is never exactly the same, once it has passed. Examples include your first day of school, religious confirmation or similar rite of passage, graduation from high school, graduation from college, getting married, and your first child. These events bring us to a place of accomplishment in that we have earned this recognition or dignity or responsibility; they also bring with them invisible barriers that preclude us from ever returning to where we were before the event. It seems it is an unwritten code, once you pass through this doorway…whether by choice or circumstance one rarely returns to the previous lifestyle. For a brief moment one is living on the edge, a place they have never been before and from which they cannot return. This must be why each of these events is normally celebrated with great fanfare and support from friends and family. The crossroad is one of growth and so support is offered for the newly initiated to hold onto until familiarity and strength are instilled.

Some events are not so celebratory and yet are important markers in each life such as the divorce of parents, the death of a loved one and the betrayal of a friend. Each of these confirms that no matter what, things will certainly change. When our world is smashed by the destruction of things outside our control the result is a different kind of scary; true you are in a place you have never been before and you cannot return to your previous life but it isn’t anything you have earned, you have been dealt a new hand. One that is missing the good and comfortable life you have come to know; one that has replaced your inside straight with a pair of threes. Indeed, life will never be the same after this.

There are others that will leave each person in a new place where life will once again never be the same, but are silently celebrated. This is so, because these events are seen as bringing us closer to the end and are not really seen as positive. Your children have just graduated from the university or are getting married or you have finally retired. Another milepost but what is to happen to your life now? Another scary place you have never been and this time you notice there is little fanfare about its effect on your life when compared to the other life events. These events have left you with an empty spot in your life rather than the prospect of a new exciting life. These are the events that often you have not adequately prepared for and if not handled properly could actually be the beginning of the end.

When we have gotten on the ‘other side’ of the big events it is important to see them for what they are in our life as opposed to what they are in other people’s life. Those events that are silently celebrated can be the most liberating events of all if we give them the respect and attention they deserve. For the first time in most of our lives we are free of significant obligations, we are mature, relatively healthy and about as fiscally responsible as we will ever be. In English, we are at the top of our game. Finally, here is an opportunity for us to express ourselves as only we can, to enjoy life as we may have always wanted and to share the depth of experience as never before.

Here is where we have to be sure we have properly prepared ourselves. We must be sure we have not become so enmeshed in our job or our children’s lives that we have forgotten how to stand alone; that our love of life is still satisfying to us, that our dreams and excitement about life itself are very much alive. This is the reward for all that hard work, guidance and support. It is a time for us. We must be absolutely certain that we are still there. Otherwise, these final mileposts will be pure hell moving us ever so slowly, step by step to a quiet oblivion.
E Rossopoulos
June 21, 2007