Life Flows On

Choosing to look ahead

“Rachel, I hope you can work through your emotions with somebody.” The customer was well-intentioned and warm, thinking her words would help me through a difficult time. The reality was quite different. I was finishing up 20 years of having a bakery with the hard work, long hours and relationships it involved. And I was already looking forward to the next cycle of my life. I was not giving anything up or living with regrets. I was moving with the flow.

I learned at a young age that looking forward is better than looking back. Don’t get me wrong. I love history, I love the memories I carry that show me that I’ve lived. But when a new cycle of life arrives, I plunge in, already dreaming and thinking ahead. I embrace and focus on the new foreseeeable twists and turns and allow the past to recede in the rearview mirror.

Life is a trail that rises and falls. I might have an idea of where I’m going and a rough map to follow. But the path happens with each step ahead. Sometimes there is some backtracking to look again at a view or retrace steps from a wrong turn but, mostly, the path lies ahead.

The key to the flow is to process as I go. If I take my time on the path to observe, soak in the view and feel all the feels, looking honestly and clearly at my surroundings, then it’s not so hard to move to the next step and anticipate what might be around the next turn. A light backpack helps as well. It would be easy to collect in it the bad things that happen as I walk. But the weight would just slow me down.

It also matters that I know I’m not the path. I am only the walker on the path. So if the path abruptly changes, I can choose how to manage it instead of letting it control me. So when I abruptly lost my job, I found another way forward. It was more rugged than the original trail but much more rewarding and with better views. And when I left the bakery, I held the good memories from that path and approached the next path with dreams of the cheese shop I always hoped for.

Life’s path continuously flows. I can choose to flow with it and let it unfold one step at a time rather than let it stop me in my tracks. I know not where it stops but as long as I can, I’ll keep traveling on the trail ahead, looking for details that fill it in.