Before

 A few weeks ago I decided it was time to master the chaos and began going through some boxes filled with remnants left over from previous chapters of my life. Boxes and plastic totes have been haphazardly stacked in a corner of my office, waiting patiently for me to figure out what to do with it all. I wouldn't say I'm a hoarder exactly, but I have to admit, I'm edging ever closer to that line. My problem is I am overly sentimental and letting go of evidence of my past--accomplishments and heartbreaks alike--is something I have a hard time doing. 

As I wandered down this memory lane paved with faded, yellowing papers, I came across a photo I had forgotten existed. It was of a young woman dressed in a black gown with a black cap perched atop her permed hair. She has been caught in the act of walking across a stage and has momentarily paused to accept a document and shake hands with a woman who is similarly, albeit much more ornately, dressed. The young woman beams with excitement, pride, and the optimism of youth.

I felt somewhat omniscient gazing at this photo. The young woman sees only a wide open road ahead of her filled with possibility. From my vantage point 36 years later, I know exactly where that road will take her, and all the stops she'll make along the way. She is just days away from falling in love and two years from having her heart broken. She will one day go back to school and spend nearly thirty years as a classroom teacher, something she believed to be a discarded dream when she graduated. Eventually, she'll find love again and marry. She'll become a mother to two beautiful, kind, smart boys who will fill her home with noise and love, then have the audacity to grow up and leave her. Looking back, it's tempting to contemplate different paths that young woman could have taken. But those alternate paths would have come at a cost, one I wouldn't be willing to pay.

The dreams of that young woman have been lived out, and now I find myself in an odd and awkward realm. All the stories I have read over the years seem to either end at the fulfillment of the main character's dreams and ambitions or fast-forwarded to the settling in to a rocking chair on the front porch, sipping iced tea and proclaiming in a tired but contented voice, "It's been a good life."

But I'm beyond the first scenario and not ready for the second. There is an in-between time that I feel I was neither warned about nor prepared for. People always talk about life in terms of chapters, but in many ways this feels like a whole new book. The main character is the same, yet she's changed so much from her experiences over the last 30-plus years, some days I hardly recognize her. What are her goals? Where does she go from here? What choices does she make that will lead to that closing scene of "it's been a good life"?

That seems to be the next challenge because the story hasn't ended. Yes, the nest has been emptied and the dream job has come to an end, but there is still road left ahead full of possibility, as long as we're open to it, and a main character waiting to be rediscovered and reinvented. We just need to be brave enough to write ourselves a new story.