Yellow Brick Road

 

The other day I found myself in the middle of a steep hill climb on the Peloton.  We were instructed to "build our road" meaning add as much or as little resistance to fit where you were in that moment.  The instructor used the time to draw a parallel between this literal road to her personal road in life and described said personal road as "sparkly".  This got me thinking about my own personal road and what that might look like.  Oh, pre-COVID I had that road figured out.  Upward trajectory at work, growing business, the height of fitness, kicking ass on the Spartan course....  Oh yes, I had it all figured out, and no, my road was not "sparkly"  it was more a sleek black fast track road to the top.  Then COVID hit like a cyclone, the world shut down, healthcare changed forever with burn out rates at an all time high, myself included.  I developed life long issues as a result of my own battle with COVID, and my business was placed on pause.  It would seem that sexy black road had disappeared and I now found myself feeling like I was staring out into a vast desert wasteland with no clear direction or destination.  I thought hard about the instructor's advice and decided it just might be time to start rebuilding the road instead of existing in the vastness of it all.



In thinking about the notion of life roads,  I could not help but think about the iconic yellow brick road of "The Wizard of Oz." Yeah that Dorothy had it going on.  Bright yellow bricks, ruby slippers and friends to walk through the trials of reaching her final destination of Emerald City.  Even the witch was no match for this.  As I began to try to engineer how I was going to convert my former desert wasteland into a meaningful road with a destination, I admittedly was at a loss, so I stalled by really digging into what the origins of the perfect road for Dorothy actually were.  Interestingly enough, what I found out in my research was that the movie seemed to take enough poetic license that it strayed from the book just a bit.  



In all actuality, Dorothy's house was not thrown by the cyclone to the perfect spiral of the bright yellow bricks as the movie suggests.  According to the book,"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" she actually had to consult Glinda the good witch and the Council of Munchkins to even know what road to take, then had to set out to find the yellow brick road as there were several roads in front of her all going in different directions.  Then, the book depiction of the yellow brick road was not bright and shiny as it was on screen, it was actually worn and had places of ill repair with large chasms and drop offs along the way.  As far as the ruby slippers go?  In the book they were actually silver, only made ruby to capitalize on the film's ability to be shown in technicolor, and let us not forget, what did Dorothy ultimately learn?  The wizard is a complete sham and she really had the power to get what she wanted all along.  So maybe that road was not as glamorous as it seemed.



All of this got me thinking.  Was I really out in a deserted wasteland lacking destination?  or was the sleek black road to success I thought I was on  really little more than a proverbial Hollywood depiction of reality, and was simply no match for the pandemic.  What I think is just maybe I really have not been stuck in the vast wasteland.  Maybe I didn't need to rebuild that road.  Instead, maybe the COVID cyclone actually knocked me on to my own battered road complete with pot holes and obstacles.   I think at times I got so caught up grieving the losses and fighting my way out of the chasms that I failed to recognize all the things I actually have accomplished.  I have my health under control,  I have a new job delivering higher quality care to patients that exude gratitude rather than frustration reminding me why I became a nurse practitioner in the first place.  I have even resurrected my blog, and yes, just like Dorothy, I have had some friends who were gracious enough to lift me up along the way.

So just maybe looking for new destinations when old ones disappear, is less about discovering some technicolor fancy road in bedazzled shoes fast tracking you to the mighty wizard to hand you all life has to offer, and more about embracing the small victories in the face of proverbial life chasms, and build on them one little piece at a time.  It is only in that space that we can truly begin to see we all have within ourselves to reach those amazing life destinations, even if the path there is messy and difficult.  This may beg the question....  what is on my road for 2024?  Well, a wise person once told me,"you be you because everyone else is taken.  Only you can do the thing, whatever that might be, and share it with the world.  So go do it."  What is that thing?  Well, I'm still working on plans and research for that, but one thing is for sure, I will go do it. 

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