I'm on a path; this path is good.

I'm on a path; this path is good.

Some people like to follow the yellow brick road. It's popular. It's well-known. It's been the path of choice for decades, so it must be the right one. But I'm bored of yellow, every day and every hour, yellow bricks passing under my feet. Blah. So when I see a dirt trail off the side of the road that delves deep into the forest, I veer off that way instead. If it ends up being a dead end, I can always go back to the road again, but I probably won't. If this dirt path dead-ends in a beautiful and magical part of the forest, there's no way that I'm going to backtrack and leave that place. I'll break out my machete and forge my own trail from there. It's a character-building experience; blazing your own trail requires much more curiosity, courage, and determination than falling back onto the road everyone else is traveling.

I'm on a path; this path is good.

Out here in the deep woods, the air smells richer, the water tastes fresher, the sounds around me are joyful and uplifting. Why would I ever want to go back. I guess one of the downfalls on my path is that I sometimes get lonely, walking through the woods alone. People in my life didn't understand when I decided to take my own path. Not everyone wants to do that; not everyone thinks it's wise. There were so many fears, so many doubts. What if you get lost? What if you encounter something dangerous? What if you can't find your way back? What if you can't find your way to your destination? What if you've chosen the wrong path? It would be so much better, wiser, safer to stay on this road with us. On the yellow brick road, the travelers generally feel confident that they are on the right path, they know where they're going, they know the directions for how to get to their final destination. They have confidence in that choice, and I'm okay with that. If that's what they need, then they're on the right path for them. But that also means that I have to be okay with being on my own out here on my own path.

I'm on a path; this path is good.

I've come far enough on this path, I've seen enough incredible and beautiful sights, that I know I'll never be able to go back. My whole life, I was told about the road we would all be following together and where it would lead us and how wonderful it would be. But now that I've broken out on my own, the journey feels so much more real. It's almost like traveling down the yellow brick road was not really my experience because it was all about other people. It was all about following a road that other people had built, and following the road signs that people from the past had put in place. And it was all about traveling the road with everyone else around you, staying together as a group, making decisions as a group about which fork in the road to take, how fast to travel, when to rest, and when to walk on through the night. Nothing on that path was mine. I tried to speak up when I felt like there was something important to say, but nobody could hear me above the clamor of the crowd. This wasn't something that was done intentionally; it's just how it is when you travel in a large group. And that just wasn't for me.

I'm on a path; this path is good.

Sometimes this path I'm carving passes the paths of others who, like me, weren't satisfied with the monotony and safety of the yellow brick road. I seem to run into these other pathfinders at just the right time, when I feel the most lonely or discouraged or when I need direction or support to make my way. In those moments when I have the most need, the answer always pops up right in front of me, in the form of a fellow wanderer who has wisdom and support and information to share with me. It's as though something or someone is actually blazing these trails for us, directing our paths so they lead us where we need to be, to what we need to find. When I need a friend, I encounter another traveler. When I run out of water, my path crosses a stream. When I run out of food, my path takes me right through an orchard. When I need rest, there is always a safe place to stay for the night. All I have to do is follow that gut feeling, that gentle tugging that gives me my direction, those words whispered in my mind telling me when to move and when to stay. Because of this, I feel confident that my path will end exactly where it's supposed to. I don't know the final destination or how long it takes to get there or what it will be like when I get there, but I trust the path.

I trust that this path is good.