by Charlene Iannella

Created on: January 07, 2011

Beginnings and endings intersecting are the stuff of crossroads.  The place where the best and worst meet, have a drink, and walk away from each other to never meet again.  And somehow, the person standing there must decide which way is the way, whether they should continue on the same path of the past or try a bold new one where all that is old is left behind.  These are the times that slide in and out of sight, losing and gaining momentum, as the true starts and stops of each of our lives.  It is the moment a person’s eyes slide up to say hello to someone new, as the same person’s eyes have just shifted away from another’s, who is possibly still looking at them, to no avail, because their eye can no longer be caught.  It seems there are always people coming and going in our lives and only a rare handful that stay, or recur like the best dream or, sometimes, the worst nightmare.  The lovers, the friends, the enemies who we meet and create a world with are never immune from the time when the world is questioned and the future hangs in the balance.  Each crossroads is definitive of the kind of life an individual wants to live.  Every time a person hits one, their life becomes more distinctly their own.

My brother recently got married and as he was going through all the preparations for his wedding day, I had begun the process of annulment process in the Catholic Church.  Already divorced, it was more a spiritual symbol than anything else but as the two processes unfolded, it struck me how these two crossroads in life, while so different, are so similar.  All the questions are the same, it’s just the answers that end up being different.  Sometimes it is as simple as the difference between us, whether a person works with someone or in solitude. 

The ultimate beginning and endings often intersect and it can almost be believed are fueled by each other’s very existence.  The couple’s vow to each other, so deeply in love with each other, yet one has suffered divorce, a failure in the past, or a crossroads, if the reader will.  A place where the person had to decide if that love was enough and because it wasn’t, the person went on to find another deeper love.  A baby’s cry through the delivery room door as a grown child is slammed with the knowledge that they have to prepare their father’s funeral.  One spirit slips away as another enters the world.  Some crossroads we face with the ability to choose our fate, and others God slips in and chooses for us before we ever have a chance to know.  Regardless, the best thing any of us can do when it comes to those beautiful intersections and opportunities in our lives, whether they are filled with tragedy or hope, is to choose a path knowing there are no certainties, never look back and hold the reasons we chose it close to our hearts for the moment the storm hits and another path rips through ours again.

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