The Second Journey in Life

"As the first part of our lives are spent on a path of entering into this world so is the second part spent on a path of leaving this world"

When I was younger my life was so busy with the entering in part that I could not grasp the reality of the truth that at some point on my path it was going to change and this change was not going to be by choosing another path or freely deciding to change directions. Just like being born, it happens rather you choose it or not, so is the beginning of the second journey, there will come a point in time, in the blink of an eye that your whole knowing of yourself and world dissolves, the illusions of all the meanings and purposes that drove you to gather all that you did on your journey of entering in will turn to water in your hands, the container that once held all your stuff for you will just vanish, it won't just shatter into pieces, there will be no trace of it left for you.

When this happens you may find yourself very disoriented, everything looks familiar but yet seems so foreign. We have all seen images on the news of people standing in the aftermath of a natural disaster where their homes and livelihoods have been destroyed and yet to compare that to what the beginning of the second journey feels like, imagine that feeling but yet everything on the outside is the same, your house is still standing and nothing outwardly has really changed, the natural disaster took place in the unseen part of your world. You are left with wondering why you're still here, do you even want to be here, what is the purpose for being here and where else is there to go? You can't even grasp who "You" is anymore, nothing seems to make sense and all the meanings you once held and used to define your reality with are water trickling through the cracks of your fingers as you make one last effort to hang on to them.

While in my twenties I can remember some of my older friends talking about the different phases in life, some said there is the "Mid life crisis" that mainly tried to express what older men went through and "The Change" that older women were destine for, I found it curious that it was perceived that men would be in a crisis and women would just simply slip out of and change outfits!  I think the better understanding is that both the crisis and change happens to men and women alike. You are going to feel the crisis that causes you to change and so we now call it the "Mid life Transition"

The younger understanding of me use to roll my eyes when I would hear about these changes and say "so what! changes are happening to all of us everyday, people go through bad stuff all the time!" and then I would reason that the older folks were just getting too old and couldn't handle that reality very well any more. Little did the younger me know and understand that all that "bad stuff all the time" coming to me or being taken from me would be looked upon as all the good things that happened to me in the form of giving me baby step lessons in how to handle the ultimate "Change" of dieing but yet remaining live, this time I have past memories of my first journey that can help me in this second journey. Because I can remember not having a choice in being born the first time and know that I survived and even remained, so too can my hope now move into faith of knowing I can trust even when I don't have a choice in what is happening to me and truth be told if it were left up to me alone to make the change, I would not make the change. Now that I have entered into the second journey of my life and truly -Our life- words fail me to express the gratitude and awe I now have for all of creation and for the Creator that I have chose to call God, it's been said that God has no beginning, how truly awe-verwhelming is it to know that he gave me a beginning that I can remember and I can only think that because it is said he has no ending so it shall be with me too and I can also now remember coming to the end of my first journey...will not the first ending help me get through the next one also.

Be blessed