Turning The Page

It’s all in the narrative. Turning points are just parts of the story that lead you to the next chapter.

We arrive in this world as cute little blank slates. We come with no instructions and no crystal ball to prophesy about our future selves. As wobbling, curious toddlers, we can’t predict if our home life or school years will inspire us to our full potential or leave us feeling less than. We have no way to foresee what our fates hold. Our cuddly, bawling, newborn selves certainly have no clue. It’s all luck of the draw.

Of course, that fact has never has stopped us from bumbling into life full throttle. We charge ahead until we reach a turning point, where street signs are often as useless as Google maps. I’m sure, like me, you’re often wondered who you would have been or how things might have been different if we had a plan and a map. But crossroads, like most things in life, are not always clear. So, we stumble ahead, armed with our instincts and whatever confidence, or lack of, we were given for the journey. We do the best we can and, while we don’t always navigate as well as we wish we could have, we often we get it more than right. Sometimes we even stick the landing. Yea, us.

Life is always at some turning point. Irwin Edman

As kids we’re pretty much at the mercy of our parents/caregivers and the home, school and financial situation we were plopped into. For the most part, we wind our way through the maze of adolescent and teen years without breaking too many things along the way. We do the best we can with the knowledge and capability we have as young people, which means we’re pretty cocky about knowing everything about nothing. Well played, kid.

We make plenty of mistakes and have plenty of excuses until one day, we cross over to the age of responsibility with no net beneath us. Congratulations. You’re reached your first big turning point. You’ll have plenty of missteps but you’re finally on your own and it feels pretty damn good – most of the time. However, as we find out soon enough, adulting isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be and the tightrope we walk is often unsteady.

Decisions are all on us now. Sometimes, we make pretty damn good ones; sometimes they’re more than questionable. If we’re lucky, we marry the love of our life or, at least they seem to be. We take first steps into careers we either love or tolerate. We inhabit our first home and learned to balance work and digital checkbooks. We become parents, ushering a brand new generation into the world. Endless schedules posted on refrigerators dictate our stressed and busy world. Yet, for the most part, we’re happily content within the bubble of our family dream — until another turning point sneaks around the corner.

“I reached this turning point where I was either going to dwell in the darkness or slap myself around a few times and say, “Wake up. You’re incredibly blessed. Focus on the great things” Ant Anstead

Those nurtured little babes we’ve watched with pride through games and graduations, begin leaving home. They fly off to college; then into homes and unions of their own. We become cliché empty nesters, wondering who we are if not worried, busy parents. We look at each other, as if for the first time in years, questioning who we are. We might realize, as well, we’ve suddenly converged in a mutual turning point with our parents, who may simultaneously be facing big changes of their own.

Do their new doors open to easier living circumstances? Are they facing illness or fragility they hoped would never come? Roles often become reversed, as we gradually now become our parents’ parents and all come to realizations that can be pretty tough to face. We realize that even if we’re a gym rat, log crazy amounts of steps each day, and take enough supplements to fund a lottery, we’re still pretty damn mortal. We begin to lose friends. We slowly lose parents, and suddenly there is no backup generation behind us.

“There’s a turning point. It arrives when we find ourselves quietly hovering inside the realization that the choice is between two pains: the pain of the jump or the pain of regret.” Victoria Erickson

Love in every form is the lifeblood of our existence. If along the way we’ve had our heart broken once too many times, trust can be a precious commodity. If we’re really lucky, the love we chose years ago is still a happy, loving one. After all, ‘till death do we part’ is all we ever wanted, right? But hearts are fragile things and can be broken beyond repair, despite our best efforts. When lives together are ruptured, we’re forced to really face solo ourselves once again.

Whether loss of your person happens when kids young and we struggle as single parents, or years later when you feel like outliers in the happy family picture, breakups suck in every form. If your partner exits your life through death, multiply that grief totally rules and you become a pile of broken. In the end, however, every break of your heart, makes your world spin on a different axis and makes your turning point a whole lot more real. Loss and grief will always be inescapable for we humans, but, hell, it really hurts.

Regardless of how we reach unexpected crossroads, we face the same question: who are we now? Reinventing ourselves happens over and over again. Whether crisis point or breakthrough, life moved you along despite your best efforts to stop the car. Our flashpoints are often totally unexpected, but necessary. Now friendships now hold a new fragility, as well as intensely more gratitude. Our children see us as actual people (duh) instead of just their parents, often now calling US to see if we got home safely. Wherever we call home feels less forever, reminding us to accumulate accordingly. When grandchildren join the mix, our expand hearts bigger than we ever imagined, as well as give us a new generation to worry about.

“Whenever you realize — that will be the turning point of your life.”

Turning points in life are inevitable. They are how we grow, move on, become. They also break hearts, break trust and break naivete. Still, turning points are as necessary as air and can be just miraculous . Turning points are the signposts to another phase of our lives, designed by the universe to collaborate with our own choices and destiny.

Whether we see turning points as moments of truth, milestones or breaking points is up to us. Life doesn’t rhyme and that’s okay. It’s all part of all what makes us – us. And, hey, it’s really all we have, so buckle up, and try to enjoy the ride.

We all have stories and mine are neither unusual nor technicolor blockbusters. All I can hope is whatever I share sparks a continuing conversation, one that invites ideas, opinions and discussion.

Tell me what you think in the comments — and don’t forget to subscribe to receive my stories via email!