Recently, I've caught myself thinking again and again about how different my life is today. Exactly twelve months ago, I was making slow but steady progress in my effort to throw open the closet door. I was testing new friendships, new activities and new feelings. I was barely managing my marriage and struggling terribly with the thought of divorce. I was still nursing the very painful wounds that resulted from the end of my first love affair, mostly platonic, but real nonetheless.
The path I walked a year ago was rocky, clouded over, and difficult, but my optimism and faith drove me onward. The perpetual glow of the distant horizon beckoned me, taunted me, and called me to move, to adapt, to change. And so, despite my fear, I did.
Impossible choices were made. Irrevocable commitments cemented. And then it was all behind me.
With some confidence and a little faith, I stepped off of the ledge of the mountain I'd been climbing my entire life into the void that surrounded me, half expecting to tumble viciously to the razor sharp rocks below.
Instead, to my surprise, I found myself floating, soaring, free from the pull of the earth, savoring the thrill and exhilaration that could come only from one's first flight into the heavens. The pain, the anger, the sense of dishonestly and duplicity that had perennially dogged my life and held me down, were gone. Peace and a primal sense of joy rooted themselves firmly in their place and raised me up to dwell with the stars.
For the first time, I felt the sun completely, warming me from the inside out. I saw the world clearly, without blur or blemish. I smelled the sweet fragrance of life and was intoxicated by its perfume.
A friend asked me last week if I would consider going back, undoing that which has been done, returning to the life I'd lived before.
In response, I simply smiled and shook my head.
If man's purpose is to find joy, I have found it and regardless of the cost, I will never let it go.
Oh, Happy Day--Aretha Franklin and Mavis Staples
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