A parable.

I'll be straight up with you... or as straight up as I can be at present.  I'm on the cusp of a potentially major change in my life.  It could be a good change... but it seems there is nothing good without a price.  "You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs," I've heard. I never really found myself in the position to truly understand and appreciate that truth until now.  Every silver lining has its cloud, apparently.

So I wait, to see what happens.  Either way it's good and bad. And in the meantime I neither eat nor sleep properly. I lay awake and turn over in my mind those mental prayer beads of doubt and worry.  It's a long string:  fear, regret, hope, grief, excitement, doubt, love and sorrow... rubbed smooth with handling, but no less painful for that.

What is worse?  Major change in your life, or the anticipation thereof?  I'm rather inclined to think it's the anticipation. At least once the change is a sure thing, you can take action, for good or ill. 

But I've been a bit too good, over the past few years, at taking action.  I tend to keep busy, keep moving to keep the dark at bay. And now... now at last the dark begins to creep up on me.  And my torch is flickering, I've backed myself into the wall, and the only way out is straight up... or else to set my feet and face what's coming toward me... the thing that's been stalking me.

Meanwhile my companions, torn and desperate, are beckoning to me from the adjacent passageway, utterly mystified at my refusal to run. Why would I stay here and face down this monster?  Why do I not run to safety, again?  It's always worked before.  But something tells me this time I have to face what's following me.  I have to turn and touch it, wrestle it down, feel its fragile reality under my boot before I can move on without fear.  Because it's only getting larger in my mind.  And the shadow it casts is much greater than the monster itself.


A rope dangles overhead, just out of reach -- lit by a distant glow of light that may or may not be a way out, but I can't go until I've faced It. And in the meantime, my companions -- their light, heat and warmth, their surety of the way out -- retreat further down the passage... backing toward safety, calling... and soon they will turn and run.  And if the rope doesn't reach, or the light is just an illusion... then, whether the monster is real or not, I will be left alone in the dark.

So I watch.