RAW::Walking Toward

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"Knowing what we don’t want is also knowing what we do want.
Abandoning is also approaching. Walking away from things – the right things – is also walking toward who we are."

~ Aidan Donnelly Rowley


This Random Act of Wisdom was tipped off from a blog that I have been following avidly of late. Aidan Donnelly Rowley is one of the most eloquent writers I choose to read. Every thing that she says is always so full of the meaning of life, whether it is the subtle nuances of parenting or the bigger picture of what really matters. I don't know how I stumbled on her blog. But I am glad I did.


Recently she posted something that has my mind reeling.

Walking Away = Walking Toward

You know when everything that you are thinking about seems to come back to you...like when you are breaking up and every song on the radio seems like the lyrics were written just for you? This post by Aidan Donnelly Rowley is like those lyrics for me.

Since I am personally considering where I am now and all that I might walk away from, I also need to consider what I am walking toward. That shift in thinking is truly eye opening for me.

She asks the question, what is so bad about walking away?

We struggle with that, don't we? We never want to see something come to an end. We relish new beginnings, looking forward to them. But it is painful when something ends, there is a break, the thing we have relied on and lived with for so long is not the same any longer. Sometimes it feels easier to stick with the status quo than to risk jumping ship and throwing yourself to the sharks.

Or is it?

"Some choices hold you down. Some chances set you free." ~ Christine Kane

I love this quote by Christine Kane. It speaks so much of the hope that can be realized by abandoning and walking toward. It is something that speaks to me as I read it each day and let that wisdom settle in my own soul preparing me for my own chance.

My dear friend R is facing the walking away dilemma right now. I know that this decision has been a long time coming, and it took an intervention of her family to make her realize that it was time. But that doesn't make it any easier. Now is the time that the if onlys... and what ifs... start to creep in. It doesn't mean that her dream doesn't have merit ~ on the contrary. Or that there aren't those of us out here who really believe in the beauty of that dream ~ we really do. It just means that now is not the time.

It has been hard. I have watched her cycle through the spiral of this doubt and uncertainty, yet she was always buoyed by a faith that what she was doing was changing lives. I just don't think that we know yet what sort of hole will be left in our community {and in our lives} without her in it. We don't know how much we touch the lives of others and we don't appreciate things until they are gone.

She told me today that it feels like she is having to put a pet to sleep. That image tears at my heart. You don't want to lose this living, growing thing that has become so much a part of your life, yet you know that the time for the suffering has come to the end. So we go through the grieving process together and hope for the best. But there are memories that will not fade. Memories, she says, of the thousands of photos over five years of all the countless lives that have been changed, no doubt been made better by this little experiment.

R is walking away, but she is also walking toward. There is a hope and a resiliency about her that I admire so much. I know that wherever she walks that she will move confidently in the direction of her dreams, it just might take her awhile to get there.

I hope she knows that no matter where she is walking toward that I want to walk beside her the whole way. Even if it takes her halfway around the world, I know she will get to where she is mean to be. This is the chance that will set her free so that she can begin again.

"Every new beginning starts with some other beginning’s end." ~Seneca



Are you starting something new? Are you looking forward to it or dreading it? How do you feel when you get to the end?
What are you walking toward today?
Do tell!

Check It Out::Ivy League Insecurities

Enjoy the day!