“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” —Michael Altshuler
I visited my hometown last weekend when I took my son to his volleyball tournament. I did not grow up in a what you would call a good city. The crime rate is greater than 89% of all U.S. cities. Yet, as I drove down familiar streets containing places I hadn’t thought of in years, I felt a sense of nostalgia.
I lived in this city for the first two decades of my life. I have fond childhood memories of zooming down the sidewalk on my bike and playing with neighborhood kids on my backyard swing set.
I believe it was adolescence when things started to go off course. It had to do with low self-esteem, and my drinking began as a way to chase away the shyness that plagued me, if only for awhile. Alcohol became a crutch; something I needed to be social and entertaining like my circle of friends. It numbed the edges when I began making poor choices with boys in my search for acceptance and love.
If I could go back…
Why was I feeling nostalgic over a place I was so glad I’d left behind? I think it was a desire to go back to a time I had most of my life ahead of me, instead of half of it behind. A desire to bring my life experience back to that quiet little girl who was too afraid to be herself. A desire to feel like I still had so much time left to get it all figured out.
Time flies, and there are no do-overs, but we are the pilots of our own lives. We can correct our course no matter how far astray we’ve flown or how turbulent the flight. That’s the gift we are given. The chance, at any point, to stop destructive patterns and start navigating the life we want.
On any given day we can wake up and decide we are capable of more than half-hearted living filled with guilt and resentment. That we deserve more than to just get by on autopilot. We can decide to fly into new horizons filled with hope and light. Filled with the precious, present moments that comprise this incredible life.
You are the pilot. Isn’t it time to fly into uncharted beauty and leave the raging storms behind?