I have learned that life takes us where we need to go and that the journey is not always in the direction that we may wish. One summer, many years ago, life decided that my path would go a different way from the one that I was expecting it to take. Back then, I was very much in love, thought I had found my soul mate, I was enjoying a career that was rocketing forward faster than I could believe, my brother was going to be married, and I, unbeknown to my family, was going to be a father. It was an incredibly exciting time. Then fate twisted the knife and the picture that I held in my mind of the happily ever after, family man was destroyed beyond all recovery. Everything was lost to me in just a few words of a conversation, in just a few seconds of time. As the words fell, so too did the pieces of my life, fragments falling to the floor and shattering, like the most fragile pieces of fine porcelain.
I don't think about this moment too often, but now that I do, I see it with a new perspective. There was my chance of fatherhood being taken away from me and at the time, so too was the way in which I saw my future. In the darkness that followed, and days of falling through the abyss of deep, dark, despair and depression, I could see no way ahead. I felt only loss, the loss of my soul mate from my life and the loss of my chance for fatherhood. One moment I had stood, basking in the rays of warm light, in love and going to become a father, the next, I stood in the darkness, utterly alone with my loss. The days that followed, the weeks and the months, were difficult. I was lucky to have a very good friend who helped me through it, who dragged me out and would not let me stay in my stupor and malaise. He laughed as I hit golf balls one evening at the driving range and said that each one must have had the face of my ex. I laughed along, not able to tell him that he was wrong, that I was still in love and that I felt no anger, just sorrow at my loss. I recovered, just as everyone always does, but it took me a long time.
Now that I think about that evening, when my world shifted completely, I know that everything that has occurred in my life since, would never have come to fruition. On one hand, I lost my chance of fatherhood and family life, but on the other, I have everything else. I am not bitter about what happened. In fact, I am thankful because it has allowed me to accomplish everything that I have, and to experience so many wonderful things in my life. It allowed me to discover my true path in life, the path that has true meaning for me.
I will never know where the other path would have led me. I never think back and wonder about it. There is no point and I consider that as wasted time and energy. My feelings tell me that things would not have worked out, they could not have worked out. I have this deep feeling that at the time I was still not ready. Perhaps I would have been able to adapt and evolve myself, I will never know and so there is little point in thinking on it. My path took a new direction, life had another purpose for me, and life took me to a place I could never have dreamed. From that point in my life, which was probably one of my lowest, everything changed and life has given me so many wonderful gifts and opportunities. It tells me that we should never give up, even when all hope seems to be lost and gone, because it never is.
I my still be childless, I may still not be a father, but I do know that my time will come. Yesterday, as I held that tiny bundle of life, I knew beyond doubt that I want that for myself. I would like to be a father, I would like to be a husband. Sometimes in life, we can't always get what we want, but if we try, we often get what we need.
_________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment