The Road To Nowhere

Sometimes the most difficult part of a journey is getting lost along the way. At time getting lost can be an adventure, if you are the adventurous type and if no one else is depending on you to stay found. Mostly, though, others are looking for us to know where we are going and to know when we will get there. They don’t much care what happened along the way. Just show up on time with everything in order.

I haven’t lost my way often, primarily because I’ve not taken many journeys. Kelly Clarkson sings a song about being trained as a child to play it safe. Through that experience she ended up living in a world of fear and distrust. She was taught, like many of us, that the safe way is the best way. Stay close to home and fall in line. Everything else will be okay.

While I haven’t lost my way often, I have found myself lost along the journey here lately. I venture out a little thinking that I am healing from some brokenness only to find that the brokenness travels with me and haunts me into confusion. I try to be real and to let others see the me I know. It’s too much. I’m like a child learning to interact in a society that has always rejected the me I have kept buried for so long. I think maybe someone might want to know the real me, but then the past tells me I’m wrong. My introductory efforts come across as if I am a weak, emotional basket case who needs to be handled with kid gloves. When I try to pull back the reins, my heart leaves the path and hides in the darkness searching for a way to another place - not back to where I came from but also not where I was going.

Some say the journey is best travelled with someone. That saying is only true if you are worthy of someone traveling with you. Some journeys are best taken alone with friends and family who love waiting patiently at the end of the path. Perhaps they will be able to wait without a time frame or an expectation of what you will look like upon your arrival. On the other hand, perhaps they will not. Either way, you will end up somewhere. Even the road to no where ends up somewhere.