You Can't Know Where to Go Without Knowing Where You've Been

    Okay, here I am.  A newly hatched magician on her way to enlightenment.  Except it's not that easy.  When my children were growing up I always knew when they were about to make a jump into a new stage of maturity.  They would first regress a little, then hesitate, then without warning suddenly appear in their new, more grown up roles.  My mother used to say that an illness had to reach a "crisis" stage before you overcame it.  During that crisis your fever grew higher, your body felt sicker, and either you died then and there or you were suddenly feeling much better.
    Right now I am being flooded with past feelings and desires.  All my dreams of what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be are coming back to mock me.  If I'm not careful they will hold me back from growing and leave me here depressed over choices I made and despondent that I'll not have the chance again to choose differently.
    The best way for me to move on from here will be to face my past and put it in perspective.  Some of my choices I don't regret and would choose again without hesitation.  Although I may regret my choice of college, if I hadn't gone there I may not have met my husband.  My husband and my children are choices that I definitly would make again, and again.  Others however need to be put to rest.  There are some lines in an old Country Joe and the Fish song called "Who Am I" that sums up how I feel sometimes.
    "Of promises and deeds undone.  And now again I want to run.  But now, there is nowhere, to run to."
    The only difference is that the song refers to promises the singer made to his friends and family, and for me it is promises I had once made to myself.
    No matter how I do it, I must place these things where they belong.  It will only be then that I can move forward to my future.