The Writing on the Wall

the far blue mountains...

this year has been a very ... interesting year. It has been a year of success, a year of endings, and fresh beginnings, a year that ends with a fresh perspective on life. Fresh, hmm? Maybe that is not the right term to use. New, new in the sense that I have not had it before, but fresh doesn't seem to quite nail it down. Fresh seems to bear the idea of being new, exciting, or happy. This year, although not lacking in its own unique type of excitement and joy has also borne a distinct mark. A somewhat settled feeling on an unsettling experience. I am reminded of a painting that my mother gave me as I graduated high school. It is a landscape, and it depicts a road surrounded by woods ending at the edge of a wide open field at the foot of distant mountains. Ever since I saw it, it struck me that this was my life. As one kind of road ends, another begins. A different kind of road, with less obvious signs, less visible markings to tell me where it leads. Yet, it leads to a very special place, shrouded in mystery ... somewhere beyond the plains and on the other side of the mountains. What lies beyond, what adventures, what experiences? What kind of person will I be when I get there, how will I change? Who will I meet, who will go with me, who will I leave behind? This road is full of questions. Questions that I cannot answer except by traveling the road. Each obsticle along the way revealing a little more about this mountain. This place I am forever moving towards and never quite reaching. This thing called my future. I am eager to be on the way, yet, I feel the hand of God holding me back. "Not yet" He says. "Don't let your gaze drift too far ahead, focus on the task at hand and all that will come in due time. Seemingly without effort, just as this road you are on now has reached its end." I hear the wisdom in this, and I struggle to gain control, knowing that I must adhere. Yet, a big part of me wants to agonize in the speculation about that mountain and what lies beyond it -- that thing called my future. But I find mastery over myself, and once again drop my gaze back to my current surroundings, and the road that is at my feet. The mountain will come soon enough, until then I am here.