Nonsensical Analogies

Bare with me here. I have a lot on my mind but need to use analogies for it to all make sense to...well...me.

As children, we have one path. We grow from infants to toddlers to children and eventually to teenagers and young adults. We are on one path and then are sprung free into the world. We follow or flee by example.

There is this fork in the road. One direction leads you to a future of possibilities and it is what you are "suppose" to do. The other direction has been taken by many but rarely ever turns out right.

You start down that path and then have confusions, doubts, fright and are actually most afraid of ending up just like everyone else has. So, you make a last minute change that affects not only your life but those around you. Some say it was a good thing, others might end up holding it against you later.

You fight like hell to get back to the direction that led to your future of possibilities. You fight for that path; you end up straying on random tangents but always find yourself back to the path. This path that is suppose to make all of your hopes and dreams come true. This path that you aren't even sure was the right path in the first place.

Soon, you start to realize things and think about all those possibilities. You should have done this; you would have done that had you know how things would end up; you could have been happy. These "what ifs" end up creeping up on you when you least expect it and far more often than you would like.

You continue on your path, looking for the happiness and success that was promised to you. You keeping walking forward, step by step, day by day, wondering when the next fork in the road will come. It will be that time that defines what is left of your life. But if that fork never comes does that mean that this path, the one you have taken for the past 10 years, was actually the right one? All the experiences, all of the pain, all of the doubt and unhappiness was just part of the journey? Perhaps the battle will ultimately make you a stronger person? What if you were strong to begin with, without the pain or battle wounds?

You see signs. I believe that when we want to see signs, we see them. Usually they come one by one, mostly coincidences, but they somehow affect how we view the entire world for that moment. We notice some one's name and remember someone we used to love. We drive by an exit on a freeway and know exactly where it leads to. Individually these things will be forgotten in minutes but when they keep coming, one after another, is it a sign or is it truly because we want to see them? And if they didn't matter then why would they cause the hair on the back of our neck to stand up or send tingles up and down our spines?

If only I could understand why things happen the way they do and what the universe has in store for us, life would be so easy. I could get rid of all of my "what ifs."

P.S. If you follow all of that, you get a cookie.