This Bridge Will Only Take You Halfway There

I got a skype call from a friend of mine last night.  She’s recently decided that she can no longer live in her current home and is moving out by Friday.  I was surprised to hear of how quickly this decision had been made—I talked to her just last week and she gave no indication of this.  But it was almost immediately clear to me that she’d made the right choice.  It was also deeply evident that she was absolutely terrified at the prospect of the change.

I can understand that feeling.  At this point in my life, I’m in a situation that I’ve never once before had to deal with, and that is having no options except those that I make myself.  All through school and college, I had decisions of my own to make, but they were ruled by the expectations and requirements of others.  Go to school, go to college, get a job for the summer, figure out something to do for the holidays…  I always was aware of what I needed to do, and I had plenty of people more than happy to help me do it.  Now, however, I’ve reached the end of the path laid out for me, and my parents and teachers and friends have left me with a few tools and a bucket of cement to build the rest of it myself.  And I look at what I have and what I still have to do and I think, oh no.

Of course I was excited to get out on my own.  Everyone is.  I’m still excited, though I’ve been in my apartment for three weeks now.  Everything is new and stimulating, even buying cooking supplies and groceries, even paying rent (though I’m sure the shine on that one will fade very quickly).  But I remember the weeks at the end of summer, when I still didn’t have an apartment, still needed to look online and make phone calls and plan trips to look at apartments.  And I remember how for days on end I avoided thinking about it, put it off, told myself I had plenty of time.  I was scared of taking that step.  In fact, I spent several nights lying awake, trying desperately not to think of how very terrified I was.  And sometimes I still feel some of that anxiety.

Shel Silverstein wrote a poem, “The Bridge” that explains this time of life beautifully.  It tells of a bridge that is only half-built, and to complete it, to reach “those mysterious lands you long to see,” you have to finish it alone.  This is exactly how I feel.  We who are starting our lives now, we are that small person standing alone at the end of the half-built bridge, staring out at the lands we want to reach, down at the long drop.  And while standing here is exciting, the beginning of our chance to prove ourselves to the world, it is also absolutely terrifying.  The sooner as we accept both of these feelings and learn to use them both to our advantage, the sooner we can get to work on the rest of that bridge.

Credit photo: http://shel96326.pixnet.net/blog/category/410776