In life we often find ourselves at a crossroads. The blurry and the unknowable, spread before us. It seems that the hardest thing is making that choice to take a leap of faith, not knowing if lurking behind the mist is a sheer cliff, sharp and hungry rocks waiting at the bottom to break and batter and devour.

This is where I stand now, at a crossroads, high on a hill, doors  - choices - on all sides, endless, roiling possibility tumbling down the mountainside. Most people like to think of a choice as a decision between two things, a right and a wrong, a yes and a no, incorrect or correct but it is not like this, not in this reality. There are always 3 choices, 4 if you count going back the way you came. The future can change everything, even the past - or at least your memories of it. The future can taint and change even that which has already passed; because a memory is no more than a perception and that is the skill of the future, to change what is perceived.

I am at a crossroads, my crossroads, the bleak mists of time and indecision swirling around my legs, twisting through my fingers, whipping my hair across my face. “This is your choice”, they whisper. “You’re only choice”. Everyone knows this choice, this place and this time, everyone knows and and everyone chooses, this is the the choice that means everything changes or everything stays the same. I’m not sure which is worse.

This is my crossroads. I must choose. No one else. There is no one here this time, to shield me or guide me, this time I stand alone and make my choice.

I’ve had so much forced upon me lately, so much need, so much pain, so much change and indecision. Too much. A barrage of emotions, of physical senses and confusing psychological puzzles buried deep in the subconscious of those I love. Dread that makes me sick to my stomach, pain that makes me want to scream until I’m exhausted, and always, always the uncertainty clouding me, choking me until I can’t think, I can’t move, I can’t see, I can’t BREATHE.

I want to just collapse, the world swaying beneath me, and just cry and scream and flail and punch and writhe and thrash until I can’t move, until I’m bleeding everywhere, cuts and scrapes and stings; until there’s pain all over me, until I’m smothered in it, until my muscles cramp with exhaustion and the sheer weight of my unhappiness.

But I can’t do it, can’t do any of it, can’t show any of it, because no one knows and no one can ever know, because it would break them to see me so broken, because they’re all so close to shattering, to splitting apart. I couldn’t do that, not to them. So my face is steady and my stance strong, my cards held close to my chest as always, my secrets locked up in their prisons where they beg for release, my heart out on my unraveling sleeve, ready to be broken, ready to stay strong and endure as I have always done, without anyone the wiser. That is what I have always done, it is what I will always do. It is how I survived before, before everything that had the power to break me took a shot at my fragile heart.

Before I thought I knew what was certain, thought I had lived down the worst and come out on top, so much I had believed I knew, so much I had believed was certain. Too much. Too much I relied on the foundations of my life I thought were so stable, I didn’t realise, didn’t know they could be broken. Now they’ve come crumbling down and my life as I knew it has tumbled with them. Now I have to build new ones, but I’m not even sure which way is up anymore, I can’t see the stars anymore living like this. I can’t find those little, everlasting points of light to guide me home, to guide me to the right door.

I step forwards in the darkness of this indecision, laying my hand firmly upon the door that points West, directly ahead of me, feeling its weight and solidity. Satisfaction curls in my stomach and though I cannot see beyond the door; instantly I know what choice this is, the most direct and straightforward, the choice of blundering blindly along a path towards the goal, focused entirely on my goal, so ignorant and as blind as a newborn presented to the world for the first time. The goal. The thing which I centre my life upon, something that is so intricately woven into the centre of my being, something that twists alongside the nerves that slip and twine threw my bones, something that pumps through my veins, following a pathway of blood and life, so much a part of me I could no more separate myself from it than I could stop my heart from beating. This door is hope and determination and a kind of blunt certainty but this door, this path is also blindness in the worst way, so much room for error and regret, so much possibility of taking a wrong turn and never reaching the end. Yet so tempting, a direct line, an easier approach, lesser effort, lesser time. Easy and calm like the west wind itself, gusting carelessly across the plains, blundering unthinkingly through the trees. This door is a side of me, a reflection of the edges of a personality not often seen. This a part of me, and yet I have never entertained this side, never shown it to the light and let it draw me in using it’s song of peace and freedom. Who would I be if at last I took this side of me from the dark and covered myself with it? Who would I be? The landscape darkens as my uncertainty grows, I jerk my hand away from the door and move on.

The second door leads North and is cold to the touch - brushed metal this time - a contrast to the solid oak of the first door. I press my palm to the door and pain stabs through my fingers, twisting in my heart, my head, reaching icy fingers through to my soul. Again, instinctively, I know what this path, this choice means. Hardship and pain. A multitude of twists and turns and switchbacks lay beyond this door, thickly shrouded in deep uncertainty and fear. So much to be gained, so much to win, everything I’ve ever wanted, ever dreamed of and hoped for laid out before me. But this path is longer, longer by far than any other, only barely do I see the light at the end, the possibility of gaining it all is slim, infinitesimal. This path is a weary one, pitted with holes and pitfalls, endless mountains to overcome, the constant battering of the icy northern squalls, caressing my skin with anticipation, slamming against my resolve. Pain, so much pain, loss and change, breaking me down, renting me apart. Probably I would be pieced back together again, but there is no certainty in the wild whisper of the wind, no reassurance, there is only the challenge and the dare. Even if I was put back together, I couldn’t be sure of who I would be or if my pieces would be put in the right order, or if I would be left strangely broken and lopsided until the opportunity came to reassemble myself. But there was so much, so, so much possibility for everything I ever wanted and so, so much hope and happiness at the end of it. The journey itself would take everything from me, everything I was, everything I am now and possibly everything I could be. It would take it all. It would be a constant and never ending battle where there was no second chance, no one to stand in for me or save me when I was fatally injured, no one to catch me when I was knocked down. Could I bear it? Could I bear the icy, biting, slicing winds of the North, those freezing gales that blew the snow across the deserted tundras to lay a crystallised, pristinely white and impossibly beautiful winter wonderland over the ends of the earth. Could I bear the icy beauty fashioned to steal breath and resolve? Could I bear the muffling snow, ready to silence my screams and pleas, the harsh and unforgiving landscape designed to mislead and deceive. Could I navigate such hostility and survive? Or would I be just another ragged and wasted soul left to blow across the icy deserts like trash left to the elements after a carnival is over and all the people have gone home; taking the laughter and the light with them. When all was said and done, could I bear it? The wind gusts over me and I shiver involuntarily and move on.

The third door points East. Once again I place my palm upon it and I feel my resolve harden. The door is plain, without embellishment or character but sturdy and strong. I can feel the ridged swirls of the wood pressing into the soft skin of my hand and I can feel it, feel the choice swirling over my fingertips, just beyond my reach, until I decide to reach for it of my own volition. This choice is one of survival, the choice of less to gain but less pain, less hardship and more certainty of the outcome. Happiness also, and satisfaction in the self-preservation, in the knowledge of a goal completed and a dream come to life. This is the choice where the goal is gained and where the life lived is not as grand or as dreamed of but still worth living, still satisfactory, still rife with experience and the possibility for more, always the possibility for more. But this, this choice is also an abandonment of true potential for greatness, a settlement for pleasantly mediocre, living always with that niggle and hint of unhappiness and regret. It is not within my nature to settle for second best, for anything less than what I want, it is not within me not to strive, to skirt the mountain instead of climbing it. It is not within me to just survive and exist as the Easterlies do, tough and changeable, able to adapt, sweeping by, passing through, never breaking or stopping to just enjoy the moment and the place in which they find themselves. The path here is worn as the others are not, the passage of many feet wearing it down, choice after choice was made and again and again this door was opened to admit and to accept, closing definitively and finally behind those that no longer wander, those that know their path. This path is the most certain, the path of least resistance. It is tempting this door, without adornment it still shines at me through the uncertainty, suggesting hope and warmth. This path has freedom and happiness woven through it, the pain and suffering beat down to a minimum, able to be evaded and kept at bay and yet…….

I look behind me at the final door. The only door that hangs open, light spilling through, keeping the darkness away. I move as if in a dream, I am almost surprised when I find myself standing in front of it, almost because it seems as if I must have known that my wanderings would eventually lead me here, to this place and this path. I stand in the doorway, toes at the threshold, listening to long ago laughter reverberating through the years to reach me now. A breeze plays across my face, tangling gently in my hair, a peaceful Southerly come to warm me, to remind me of the summer days that now lie sleepy and peacefully dormant in my past, come to soften the pain of looking back and knowing it will never be the same. This door, this door is an opening to my past, the days spent with family and with friends, so content in my naivete, even in the wrenching pain of my many innocent sorrows. But the happiness, the love and the laughter, all of it far outweighed any pain or darkness felt. My past could not be described in one word or in one way, it was an entire life time, lived in a multitude of places and moods. I was so happy, so, so happy, radiant in my bliss and contentment. It is only now as I look behind me and regard it with new eyes that I can see everything for what it really was and the true and inexplicable fortune that I was blessed with, it is an aching, burning wrench in my soul to know that nothing could ever be like that again.

I open my arms as if I could physically embrace and hold on to the memories, I can almost feel the golden light emanating from the door spill across my skin, light as a feather. Tears well up in my eyes as images flash in a swirl of hazy light, vanishing from sight faster than I can blink. Laughter and long ago smiles echo inside me, until I can hear it all around me, filling this great echoing chasm with life. I let out a great gasping breath, sobbing even as I laugh gaily, so completely overwhelmed by the impossible beauty and the endless void of sadness gathering inside me. I find an intense kind of sorrow in the knowledge that my heart is not big enough to feel all of this, all of these….emotions  - if you can call them that. Wild and unpredictable they seem to soar within me, filling the depthless and empty night sky, they speak of the wild places between the sheets of water in a waterfall, where everything is untrammeled by natural laws, there is only the free fall, the spray flung high to the stars and the steady beat and thrum on the rocks below. There is tremendous force within the fall of the water matching the grip and rush of these emotions, emotions with force enough to bend me, break me, shatter me, but also a type of gentleness and grace; they seem to tell of the lifting of golden leaves by the autumn wind as they rise inside me. These emotions are things to get lost in, to lose myself in places where sense is abandoned and freedom is screamed to the wind and sky as I am borne away on a steed of raw emotion. But this, this is only an attempt to describe, to compare, the true sorrow here is that my heart could never be large enough to encompass this and know the true extent of them.

Coming down gently from the rush and the high, the Southern winds bring me back, coiling around me gently, dulling the force and the rush of these emotions, pulling me, tugging me insistently. I could choose this, choose to stay within the known parameters, staying always between these golden doors never moving, never changing. I could live in the past and always know, always be certain. I listen to the South wind as it tugs on me gently and I know, somehow, that it is not trying to persuade me to choose. No. The message of this warm and peaceful wind is different. I understand. The laughter dies in my throat as I reach the edge of the threshold. I let my gaze and my mind wander, just for a moment, watching my past like an old home movie, the comfort and euphoria immeasurable, unfettered in this moment by any pain or regret or longing. The sum of all those years of trials and wanderings, weary and endless treks and nanoseconds of happiness, whole years spent in joy that made me who I am today, that have led me to this hill side and these doors. If anything had changed or been different, it would not have been me standing here, this unknown place filled with every aspect of myself would drastically and utterly changed, every experience and perception was as rare and unique as a snowflake falling from the summer sky. The person that stood here instead would be as foreign to me as the wild plains of Africa must be to the inhabitants of the frosted forests of the Arctic.

My heart aches, shattering, breaking over and over inside my chest as a door knob appears to me through the mist. Slowly, achingly I reach into the mist letting the warmth envelope me for the last time and just as slowly pull the door closed, the click of the door settling into its place echoes around this space of uncertainty in time with the break of my heart. I lean my head against the warm surface of the door, it is soft and warped with age, the metal of the doorknob, worn away by the hands of many years, is buttery and silky smooth beneath my hands. I let the tears flow freely as I stand there cheek pressed against the door to my past, the years of my life shine before me, fading one, by one, each memory breaking and wearing me down while at the same time they strengthen me. I hold these close for just a second, knowing in my heart of hearts, that the moment I let this door go, it will vanish from me forever, never again at a crossroads will this door appear to me. The last vestiges of the Southerly whisper their song to me, letting me knowing that it is okay, to let go. I press my lips against the door and whisper, ever so faintly,ever so gently, “goodbye”, against its softly warm surface before stepping back and letting go. A single tear falls and in that breathless gap of time the door fades.

The pain is white hot, inconceivable agony to me and I cry out wanting this uncaring void to know just how much that choice cost me, how much that meant to me.

The pain slowly dulls, allowing me to breathe and to think, to wonder at the pain and my choice. It is like nothing else this feeling, the beginnings of relief as a weight is lifted from my soul but also the inconsolable pain of the absence of that choice and that safety net. It is the kind of feeling that leaves you drained and empty and wanting to lay on the ground unfeeling and floating away inside your head as your body heals and recovers, adjusting to the new absence.

But I turn resolutely from the blank space left by the door and move into the middle. The time has come, this choice cannot wait any longer, it is impatient and insistent pushing at every to new break and scar on my heart, it wants to be done now that it knows I am finally ready. I look towards the West, peaceful, gentle but full of blind turns, blank spots and unknown variables, gaping holes where thoughts and knowledge should be. It would not hurt to choose the West, to end up with a life unwanted and unexpected with only the slightest chance of the goal reached. But it was not me and not a side of me I wished to see any clearer.

I look East, the path of the survivor, the last warrior standing at the end of a great battle. It is a half-life, an ignorant life and a skittish lifestyle, half-done, half-lived, half-loved. The largest chance, the only certain chance of the goal reached but could I give up the rest? Could I give up the half that would hurt too much, would bring the most chance of wreck, ruin and true happiness? I asked myself again, could I bear it either way? I was not one for the preservation of self, or one to do things halfway. I poured everything I had, my whole heart and soul into all that I did, nothing was half-way done, nothing was given up on, nothing was too hard or too hopeless. Nothing.

Finally I look ahead of me. North. The hardest, the most painful, the most exhausting and heartbreaking of all my paths and yet it held the most of me, the biggest and most important parts of me, feeding my determination to succeed, my need to strive and climb, my all consuming need for adventure and excitement and my inability to simply live in ease and in peace. This choice, it seems right. In the way that it feels right to lay the last piece of a long and frustrating puzzle in it's correct place. The way it felt right to breathe or to sleep. This choice is natural and now I could see that. This choice, my choice seemed inevitable. It was the only one worth making.

I.Choose. North. Once I say it, once I admit it to myself that this is what I want, this is who I am and this is who I will be, everything seems to erupt inside me and in a great blustering sweep, the mist of my uncertainty clears and finally I can see clearly, see everything the way it is meant to be.

The icy squalls of the North blow up around me as I feel that last piece slide into place. The wind whips my hair into a frenzy; flinging it through the air, biting, tearing at me, rejoicing with me as I shout my triumph to the wind, only to have it lost in the hungry swarm and swirl of gusts. I walk forward, my steps light, as if the choice has lifted a burden from my shoulders and in that immeasurable space of time before the weight of my world is once again loaded onto my shoulders, I am floating. The smoke has cleared and now, the sky is cleared to my vision and I see the stars - my star - shining in the sky guiding me home to my heart. It’s shine is a challenge as it hovers above that long sought after goal, as if to say “What are you waiting for ?”

Taking up the challenge, I place one foot over the threshold and feel the chill of anticipation creep up my leg. I turn to look at the other doors, already fading into the gathering mists of subconscious thoughts and forgotten memories that always lurks at the edges of our minds, the detritus of a lifetime's worth of thoughts and experiences. For a moment I can almost see myself, a ghosts, shades, a mere flickers of my soul, some standing at each door, hand on the knob, one pacing around the space of turmoil I just vacated and one with eyes flicking between each door, each choice. But within the space of one blink and the next, they are gone, disappeared into the ether and through the doors that no longer exist to me.

I feel a strange aching burn of loss, as my heart mourns for those choices and those lives, the pieces of me that I may never know again, the people I would never meet, the places I would never see, the perception of my world that I would never gain, the love I would never have. All of them were lost to other worlds and other lives I could never have led.

The ache makes me eager, to hurry, to stalk down this path with my determination burning like a fire inside and my head held high and forget the others, forget the pain and the possibility. But something catches my eye as I turn, jolting me in the worst way, a shot of heat and pain that reaches into the depths of my soul, freezing me where I stand, locked in this inbetween place. The mist has cleared completely and I can see me, not a shade nor a shadow. Me. Younger than I am now, but not as young as I have been, in that confusing place where you are not quite a child but nor are you an adult, that awkward place where you stand on the cusp of something but it is still unknown to you what it is.

This young me stands directly opposite me like the reflection in a mirror, in the place of that most painful choice. Slowly Young me raises a hand, smaller and softer than the ones that hang limp at my side, unblemished by the ensuing passage of time. Young me smiles, encouragement beaming across the distance between us, the distance between the two pieces of my soul. Young me waves, slowly, carefully, finally. She looks me in the eyes, defiance and sadness clear amongst the colours of our eyes, hers are so much bluer, as mine used to be, a mark of her youthful innocence. She inclines her head as if tipping a hat to me, trying to lighten the heaviness we both feel. Tears prick my eyes and the pain flares up, a twisting, clawing, burning beast in my heart, I know she feels it too but her gaze is steady. I understand. This is goodbye, my goodbye to who I was, to the me who wanted so desperately for the world to stop spinning, for time to pause and for everything to stay exactly as it was. But the universe does not change its laws for one person, the moon cannot shift the stars, the sun cannot stop in its orbit so that it may never relieve the darkness again and sea cannot part so those that drown can walk their way to safety.

Her presence is a reminder of the dreams and hopes of the past and that only by moving into the future may they be realised, it's a reminder that it will be okay, that it's okay to say goodbye, it's okay to leave. It’s okay. Those memories will always stay with me, the echoing warmth of love and bright days will always flutter at the edges of my awareness. Even when my skin is wrinkled and sags off my old and brittle bones, those memories will be part of me, buoying me up and strengthening my heart when it threatens to break, coaxing my soul in a steady pulse when the pressure of all my years begins to crush and mangle it. I will never be that girl again and that is okay. I will be okay. I nod back to Young me, doffing my imaginary cap, smiling as I do so, trying to adjust my smile and my heart to encompass the strange reconciliation of the pain that will never leave me and the newfound hope that reside comfortably next to one another within me. Young me grins and flings a single careless wave at me before spinning round and sprinting into the hazy nothingness that crowds the edges of my consciousness. The sound of her laugh - my laugh! - only reaches me after she is gone, a single note of untethered happiness and boundless freedom that follows me over the edge as I slowly, definitively slide the door closed and finally, finally ready, turn to face the rest of me.