A Page Turner

Here I am.  I’m at a new page.  That is what life is after all, page after page of new fresh white open expanses to fill.  It’s how we fill them.  That is the art.  Whether we choose to fill each new ( ) with stories of darkness and fear we tell ourselves to “keep ourselves safe”, because after all we have learned haven’t we? The stories we have told have taught us the hard way that life has rough edges.  It’s not the pretty place we imagined then. So we continue to fill each new page with our fearful stories of what happened then, warning ourselves to stay home now and do nothing for fear of the frightening and failure filled world that lies beyond that front door.  We fill reams of paper with reasons why we stay, why we can’t turn that page and embrace the opportunity of a new start.  We have filled volumes with our closeted skeletons and boogie monsters that hide under our beds.  We are so busy, most of us, composing these stories and heeding their wisdom that we fail to even notice when we turn a new page.  Our obsessive, fevered composition is so deeply consuming that we are aware of little else in the room around us, or inside of us other than our stories.

Turn the page.

There are other kinds of stories we can tell.  In failure and pain are deep wisdom. Perhaps our inattention is our worst enemy. Perhaps it is that inattention that causes us to miss key moments, of connection, of grace, of kindness on which new stories can be built.  It is my experience that from each new connection grows the potential to spring into an all new storyline.  If we are too focussed on our fearful stories of what happened then we miss those moments happening now, those new pages waiting to be filled, offering endless potential for growth and change. We have learned that it is painful.  We have learned that it is hard this life we have.  What we have also learned is that it simply continues to continue.  No matter what we say or what we do or how we try to hide from it with our hero’s and grand tales of hope and glory life still continues to continue.  And we are all too busy with our fear that we miss it.  The very moments we look for, the fairytale that we seek to write, it’s all in front of us just waiting for us to turn the page and look up and see the beautiful story around us waiting to be lived now.