Colliding with My Future

Colliding with My Future

By Clarissa Partlow

     One morning on my drive into work the traffic on the highway came to almost a screeching halt.  After several miles of barely moving the traffic began to pick up speed to its regular 70 to 80 miles per hour.  As I picked up my speed on 285 headed toward downtown Atlanta I looked in my rearview mirror to see what was going on behind me.  While I was looking behind me I was quickly approaching the cars in front of me.  When I focused my attention on what was ahead of me I had to quickly apply my brakes because the traffic was once again slowing down.  This made me think.  We can be so focused looking at what we are leaving behind that if not careful we will crash into what is in front of us. 

     I thought about how there are things in my past that I have found myself focusing on too much.  As a woman in my fifties there are some fond memories and there are some that I would rather forget.  Sometimes I cannot help but think, “What if?”  What if the marriage had worked out?  What if I had not left my job? What if I had not relocated?  I am quite sure you can think of some “what ifs” of your own.   The problem is we cannot focus on the what ifs. Quite honestly, what if those things had been different, then what?

     Just like I had to pump the breaks before colliding with the car in front of me I had to pump the breaks before I collided with the future in front of me.  I also found myself looking back at what use to be. Yeah, it used to be me and my two boys who are now adults.  One has a wife and one lives in another state.  I used to be married.  I used to have a “good” job.   However, no matter what life used to be I knew there was something in my future worth moving forward for. 

     Recently, I had to make a conscious decision to stop the distractions of the “what ifs” and the “what used to be”.  Focusing on the past was causing me to have an almost collision with what was right in front of me.  While looking at what I had left behind I was missing the goodness of God’s plan for my life.  We all have an idea of what we want life to look like or what we think it should be.  For some, life looks a lot different than expected.  I am one of those.  My life does not look anything like I thought it would.  We cannot get stuck there!

     Re-imagining life has become one of the best things I could have ever done.  Finding My Fifty Plus Life has become a mission to find me and to share with other women who find themselves at the crossroads. There is life on the other side of our hurt, our disappointment and our pain.  There is a life that is greater than anything you or I can ever dream or imagine.