Imagine yourself, it
is a summer's night. You see the lightening bugs flying around you,
the sweet crisp smell of summer is in the air. There is a slight
gust, a nice cool night. A night that makes you want to wear a
hoodie and shorts. In the distance you can hear kids laughing and
playing in the night. The street is illuminated with the dim glow of
the street light from on the corner and from the full moon above you. You are sitting on a door step,
the light behind you is on but the door is closed. You have been
sitting at this doorstep waiting for the door to open, but somehow
you know it doesn't but you still wait with hope that it does.
Across the way is another house, the light has just been turned on.
You become curious as to what is going on, but you still decide that
you want to wait and see what happens. You are constantly looking
both ways, behind you at the door that is closed, and forward to the
door that has recently just opened. A familiar face peers out of the
door across from you. The voice just calls out to you, but you just
respond with “no thanks.. not tonight.”
The person gives you that discouraged look but is always approving of
everything and thinks nothing of it. It sits in the back of your
mind, “maybe I should go over there… but.. what if this
door opens...” You continue
to sit on the door step, waiting, hoping but knowing the answer
already. This door shut a long time ago, but you still fight the
urge to want to leave that door step because someone had once told
you something so intimate that you held on to it, you refused to let
it out of your heart and that is why you stay at that door step.
However, that curiosity still is building in you, the want to see what
is behind that other door. Again, the familiar face opens the door
and calls out to you. You still respond, “not tonight…
I'll think I'll just wait right here..” Once
again discouraged but accepting of your answer the person calls out
to you again, “are you going to sit there all night?”
You hear their words, but you
don't know how exactly to respond. Are you going to sit here all
night? Is this what you want to do? Thoughts and questions keep
bouncing in the space between your ears. Before you know it, you
look up and the person is standing right in front of you. They look
at you, just this grin on their face that says they know something
you don't. You become a little aggravated with them. Why do they
keep wanting me to come over? The person looks at you, looks up at
the door, and then looks back to you. “You know that
door has been shut all this time yet here you are, just waiting.
What are you waiting for?” The
words hit you in a way you would not have expected, in a good way
making your heart flutter a bit. This person knows how exactly to
reach you even though you never would have thought they would be able
to. “Look, you can sit here all night. Honestly I
wouldn't blame you, but there is more to life than just waiting.
Trust me, come over. Or you can just sit here, and well just wait.
Your choice my man, but my door is always open you just need to make
the choice.” The familiar
figure looks down to you again, looks up at the door you are waiting
for, and just smiles. “Well, like I said, my door
is always open. I hope to see you soon.” The
person spins on their heels, and walks back across the street. You
become aware of the bugs, the sweet crisp summer air, the kids in the
distance, you become aware of it all again. It hits you, but in that
good way, the way that makes you want to take action. What are you
waiting for? As you stand up, you dust off your shorts and look
behind you. The door remains closed, but the front porch light still
remains on. You take notice of the door, the intricacies of it, the
memories of going in and out of this door. The good, the bad, the feelings, the memories, all of
it. You smile. Somehow, someway you know that this door opens
again, but for now you are done waiting. You stretch your arms for a
quick second, and just look up at the full moon. Once again you take
it all in, your surroundings, your environment, you soak it all up
because you know everything is about to change in ways you would
never imagine. You finally start walking across the street. Every
couple of steps, you glance back, but you know that door still
remains closed. You cross the sidewalk, and slowly walk up the set
of steps in front of this new door. You ring the doorbell, and as
you do you look back one last time. There is a part of you that
wants that door you just left to open again. You look at where you
had been sitting all this time, such a long time to be sitting in the
same spot, but you feel it was worth waiting in that spot. You close
your eyes, and just soak it all in for one last time. The sounds,
the smells, the sights, the ambience of it all, you just absorb it, and as you do this
grin just slowly comes across your face. You'll be back, you don't
know how you know but you just know you will. As your grin morphs
into a smile, you open your eyes. The door behind you is still
closed, but you still smile, because the door in front of you has
opened. That familiar person is just waiting and smiling at you, “I
knew you'd come..” You just
look at the them and say, “I didn't.. but it was time..”
You smile, and walk through
that door which you had been reluctant to pass through. The door
where behind it you have no idea where it leads, but somehow you know
everything is going to be alright. You pass through the Impossible
Door.
There
is a turning point in our lives, when we realize that the thing we
have resisted, the thing we have been hesitant about is the exact
thing that we need. You realize that you are not in solitude for a
bad reason. In this fortress
of solitude, you begin to learn about yourself. Who you are, who you
were, and who you want to become. You learn to draw upon the things
that will define you for the rest of your life. You realize that you
have been fighting yourself for so long that when you learn to accept
the world as it is, the prison your mind has been trapped in becomes
unlocked. You open the door of the cell you have erected around
yourself, and step out of your thoughts and learn to focus on more
important things. You realize that you were never meant to fight
this battle, let alone this war. This war has already been fought,
and won. This solitude you are in, you accept it not because you
have to but because you want to. You look back at where you started,
and how far you have come. Then you look forward, and see how far
you have yet to go, but it does not frighten you anymore. Everything
is already taken care of, all your answers are waiting ahead of you,
it is just that you need to learn to wait for them. You learn to
pursue patience rather than just standing still. You take each day,
one step at a time, but knowing that you are moving forward from
where it was that you have come from. The man who you were, that man
is the past. The man you are becoming, that is who you are now. You
learn that the things you thought
you were supposed to be fighting for, were never yours to fight for.
It becomes clear, if the what you are fighting for isn't being
reciprocated, then why do you fight? If what you want out of life
isn't a shared thought, then why chase that thought? I have resisted
change for so long that, I just was stuck in the mud spinning my
tires. It took one of the men from my bible study to kick start all
of this, and it was a simple as being at lunch and hearing him say to
me, “Dude, I see an awesome change in you… Mitch, I'm
glad I know you.”
You learn to embrace the
flames, instead of resisting them. You learn to accept the world
around you. You learn that you have changed, but it is not a
complete process yet because there is more yet to come but what is
coming ahead of you is for your benefit. I have toiled and
struggled. I have self destructed, but I have started to overcome.
I look in the mirror, and it finally becomes clear the man I want to
be, the man God intended me to be. For the first time in months, I
can say that I truly am starting to find joy, not just happiness, but
joy in my heart. Mother's Day is when I realized this. Being around
family, I had not truly laughed in over 6 months, but Sunday it came
all rushing back. I am starting to feel the change, to feel myself
become the man I am meant to be. I am starting to see the blessing
in all of this, and it feels great. Just when all the pieces seem to
be falling apart, is when you realize they are falling together. I
know what I want from life, I know what I am willing to fight for,
and who I am willing to fight for. As I cross this threshold of the
impossible door, I look back
but just smile. Things change, people change, and regardless of what
happens I just know everything is going to be alright. The heart
knows where it belongs, you just have to take it one step at a time.
Where there is hope there is faith, and where there is faith miracles
happen. In the end if you don't have faith, what do you have?
Normally I end these with a quote from scripture but I'm going to use
part of a poem from Robert Frost. Good night and God bless.
Two roads
diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one
less traveled by,
And that has made
all the difference.
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