"weep not for roads untraveled.
weep not for paths left alone.
'cause beyond every bend
is a long blinding end
its the worst kind of pain I've known.
give up your heart left broken
and let that mistake pass on
cuz the love that you lost
wasn't worth what it cost
and in time you'll be glad it's gone.
weep not for roads untreaveled
weep not for sights unseen
may your love never end
and if you need a friend
there's a seat here alongside me."
A dear friend of mine posted this song as her status. I love Linkin Park, so I looked up the song. I was struck by the melody, the way that Linkin Park manages to evoke emotion through the chords they choose and the words they sing. It brought to my mind a lot of things that have been culminating lately....
I've been a creature deep in thought as of the last couple of weeks, and this week especially, as I've been mostly staying home or in the library--
I'm at a point in my life, and have been for the last year, where I am making a lot of decisions. Decisions that will change my life forever, and influence my time in this life. Decisions about school and work and travels and family.
I checked out a Shel Silverstein book from the library. "Everything On It" --and have been struck by the profoundness of his poems. He always has clever lessons to share, things to teach children. My favorite so far was the poem "Jimmy-Jack-John". It's about a little boy who, one night, goes searching for the dawn. Shel Silverstein writes to him: "Just wrap yourself tight in this blanket of night / and the dawn will come to you."
He also said this:
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the wont's. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me...Anything can happen, child. Anything can be."
Something that's been perplexing me is this: When I look down one road, I'm struck with an intense distraction--caused by the other road that I've just looked away from. If I decide to go to London, I cannot be anywhere else while I am there, I can't be in India, or in Africa, or in Hawaii. And while I can go later, what would be my fate were I there instead of here?
If I decide to take a step, I'm automatically ruling out a million other options. What if less misfortunate would befall me on another road? What if I could help more people by choosing a different way? What am I missing down the other road?
I echo Pocahontas in asking what could be down the riverbend. What waits for me? And what am I going to miss in choosing one way over another?
This is where we come back to Linkin Park.
"Weep not for roads untraveled / weep not for paths left alone."
If I trust God, the path that I choose under his direction will be the right one, and I will be very happy. Yes, I will only have one life--and it is so easy to wish to live a million different lives--but I will be happy living the life that fits me.
I will step into these choices, these changes, and I will never look back. After all, what good can looking back do anyway? It just causes pain. C.S. Lewis remarked in The Screwtape Letters:
"The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them."
I'm not going to weep for roads untraveled. I'm going to live in the now--in "the point at which time touches eternity."
And I'm going to love it.
