‘Meet me at the crossroads’ (Blazin’ Squad, 2002 )
- Helen Ramage
- Mar 11, 2019
- 3 min read
Have you ever come to a crossroads in your life? Maybe you’ve come as far as you can on one road and then you find yourself with two different paths ahead and you have to decide - do you carry on this road you’ve always know? or do you split off and follow the new path without knowing if there will be potholes or fallen trees? Sometimes, you don’t have a choice – you get diverted of this path that you have trodden for so long and you have to go down the new road because the old one might as well have been firebombed.
Recently, I came to a crossroads. For the last four years I’d be doing life a certain way. I had my mates (shout out to all my girls who are actually my rocks), my family, my job, my boyfriend and a three-year plan, five-year plan and a lifetime plan. I was happy on this path, blissfully happy,
and then one day over a month ago I couldn’t go down my happy road any longer. I no longer had a boyfriend and in turn no plans of any kind. I realised that every future step I had planned for -whether that be houses, jobs, careers, weddings, kids – they all had him in. In the midst of my blissful walk down to happy ever after I hadn’t even realised that I was making him the lead actor in the really long feature film of my life. After we broke up I was stuck at this crossroad (unfortunately Marcel wasn’t there, that might have softened the blow) and I didn’t want to take the other path but I knew I couldn’t continue with what I had done before.
I thought, ‘What am I going to do?’. First things first, I ain’t no appetiser, side dish or dessert, hell I better be the whole damn three courses, plus after dinner cocktails and entertainment. Consequently, treading that familiar path of four years was out the window, as was the first dance to Alicia Keys, the dog called Benji and the idea of creating a start-up business together. This left the other option – venturing down the path which has no street-lights, could have a few potholes and will definitely be completely different. Six weeks in and I can confirm that it’s hard – really fucking hard. To anyone who has been through a break-up this isn’t news to you, you’re thinking ‘Yeah you’re telling me’ and you’re also probably thinking ‘But it will get better’ and of course I know that! Of course, it will – it always does but for the time-being it’s truly shit. Although for the moment it’s awful I have faith that eventually with a new path there comes new discoveries, new adventures and lots of fun to be had.
I suppose nothing in life is ever for certain. Tomorrow your life could be flipped upside down and you could find yourself at a crossroads you never even imagined. You might have a job you thought you loved but tomorrow your dream job might pop up on LinkedIn and you’ll be at a crossroad. It may be that you’re in your final year at uni and after you graduate you haven’t got a clue what to do or it could be that you’ve graduated, and still you haven’t got a clue – I know all about this.
The point is that whatever situation you find yourself in or however your life may be eventually you will be confronted with a choice. We’re asked to make small decisions all the time and we may think of these as small little crossroads but ultimately whether you have wagamamas or nandos your life won’t change that much. I’m talking about the bigger decisions things which could alter the course of your existence. This decision could be anything – travel or uni? Get a 9-5 or join a start-up? Work to live or live to work? Stand up and say something or keep quiet and maintain the status quo? Stay with the fella or say good-bye and navigate a new world heartbroken but with determination? It’s the decisions we make which determine our path and it is definitely easier to stick to the known route but that doesn’t mean it’s right. You have to do what is right for you – whether that be the into the unknown- doing that is a lot better than carrying on with a life which could have been so much more.
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