Kerry Says

For years I believed in signs. I could read them like sailors read stars.

I’d take jobs because of them, quit jobs, write letters, move cities, speak up, take action.

I would do these things with confidence. They were the right decisions and I knew it. I could see the path I was supposed to take lit up by these beacons, these signs. Decisions could be made in an instant.

I still see signs. And I know what they mean. But I don’t trust them anymore.

Not wholeheartedly.

There’s no reason for this, that’s the tragedy of it. I didn’t make a wrong turn or endure some spectacular failure. Doubts simply started to arise about them, slowly over the last few years.

“What if this isn’t the right choice?” “What if I believe in it and it doesn’t happen?” “What if it makes me stop believing?”

And that’s all it took, damage done.

I don’t know if that confidence is merited only by the young, or if perhaps I’m replacing belief with knowledge or wisdom.

Maybe it’s the natural order of things. One day Peter stopped coming to Wendy’s window, and Christopher Robin stopped visiting the Enchanted Place at Galleons Lap.

So I’m beginning to wonder when the signs will fade, and I won’t be able to make them out in the midst of the commotion of life. And I wonder what I'll believe in then?