Things happen.
Things that are unfair happen, and you end up in places you never intended to go.
What do you do about it?
Well, you can try to reason it out and get back on track.
The problem is you don’t always know exactly where you veered off course.
Things looked all right! Actually, they looked pretty good, like your life was finally falling into place.
It goes down something like this:
The road looks familiar to you at first, so you think everything’s okay. You’re passing landmarks that you swear you’ve seen before. You know just when to lean into the curve and when the road is straight for a while. You just ride along, letting the wind blow your hair and think, “I’ve got this!”
When you look from side to side, you swear you can see people lining the highway, cheering you on. That’s what people do isn’t it? So you keep on going, because you know this is right where you need to be.
Suddenly, you reach the end of the road and you don’t even know where you are. What was familiar just a few seconds before is stretching behind you like the big lie that it is. It wasn’t the right road. It wasn’t YOUR road.
It looked like your road and felt like your road, but it wasn’t your road, and it couldn’t be more obvious than it is now. You feel lost and defeated. You feel alone.
The thought crosses your mind that you’re too embarrassed to turn around. Everyone will see you. You can’t go back down the road you just traveled.
They’ll know you were going the wrong way! Maybe they already did.
All those people who were standing on the side of the road to cheer you on could have reached out to stop you at any time with a question or a warning.
Like, “Hey, do you think maybe there’s a better choice for you?” But they didn’t, and they’re still standing there, waiting for you to ride past them again.
You think about continuing to travel in the wrong direction. After all, who but you would know? It’s either that or face that crowd of people waiting to tell you how you failed. Again, you went the wrong way.
“But I tried,” you think. “I tried. I did my best and gave it all I had to give! I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought it would turn out okay in the end.”
Since you don’t know what else to do, you take a moment to reflect on your roots. You remember where you came from.
So, you go shopping.
Wearing the most outrageous outfit you could come up with, you paste a beautiful smile on your face.
