Destiny Is the River

I have a theory about destiny.

Not the kind I’m going to prove with charts and numbers. Just something I keep thinking about, especially when I look back at the years I’ve spent trying to make life go my way.

I think destiny is a river.

And I think I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of my life trying to swim upstream.

That rock I refused to leave

I’ve done it in relationships.

I stayed when things weren’t working. Not for a few extra weeks. Sometimes for years. I could convince myself that one more conversation, one more chance, one more round of trying would fix what wasn’t fixing.

Maybe some of that was love. I won’t pretend it wasn’t.

But leaving a relationship isn’t like returning something to a store.

You don’t just leave one person. You leave a whole world.

Her family. Your home. The money. The plans. The little routines nobody notices until they’re gone. All the things you built together, including the ones you didn’t even realize you were building.

You can know you’re unhappy and still have no idea how to walk away from all of that.

So I tried harder. I convinced myself I could make it work.

And sometimes, when one relationship ended, I’d move into another. New person, new beginning. Or at least a new place to hide from the old ending.

Looking back, I wonder whether I was trying to get somewhere new or trying not to leave somewhere old.

I picture myself in a river, holding on to a rock I loved.

The water is pulling me downstream. I’m kicking and grabbing and doing everything I can to stay right there.

It’s a nice rock. I know that rock. I have memories with that rock.

But the river doesn’t care about my memories.

Eventually I lose my grip.

And there I go, downstream anyway.

Only now I’m exhausted.

The river doesn’t negotiate

Here’s the strange part.

I can swim against the current for hours and feel like I’m in control because I’m doing something.

My arms hurt. My legs burn. I’m working so hard I must be getting somewhere, right?

But the water keeps moving.

Maybe I manage to stay in the same spot for a while. Maybe I even move back a little.

Then I get tired.

And the river takes me downstream.

All that effort, and I still end up going the way the water was going.

What if destiny is like that?

What if there’s somewhere life is taking me, and I can spend the whole trip fighting it without changing where I eventually arrive?

I know. That’s a big what if.

But stay with me.

Because the part that interests me isn’t just where I end up.

It’s what happens to me along the way.

I missed the view

A river isn’t one long stretch of the same water.

Sometimes it’s warm and calm. The sun is out. You can hear birds. There’s nothing to do but float and look around.

Sometimes the water is freezing.

Sometimes it moves so fast you barely have time to think.

There are rocks. Sharp turns. Rapids that scare the hell out of you. Waterfalls you never saw coming.

There are beautiful places you might never see again.

Now imagine going through all of that while staring backward at one rock.

That’s what gets me.

Not only did I fail to stay where I wanted. I missed where I actually was.

I was so busy trying to get back to yesterday that I wasn’t around for today.

And yesterday wasn’t waiting for me anyway.

You can’t enjoy the view when you’re facing the wrong way.

Floating isn’t quitting

I can already hear someone saying, “So what, we’re supposed to do nothing? Just let life happen?”

No.

If I see a rock coming, I want to move.

If I’m headed for a waterfall, I’d rather notice it before I’m falling.

If the water turns rough, I’ll swim. If I can reach a safe bank, I’ll take it.

That’s the whole point.

When I’m not wasting every bit of strength fighting the current, I can actually pay attention.

I can see what’s ahead. I can move around the rocks. I can enjoy the warm water while it’s warm.

I can be present for the ride.

Floating doesn’t mean I stop making choices.

It means I stop confusing the need to control everything with the ability to choose something.

And maybe that’s where freedom lives.

Maybe even the fight was part of it

There’s a question I can’t get away from.

If destiny really is the river, what about all the years I spent swimming upstream?

Were those years a mistake? Or were they part of the river too?

Maybe I had to get tired before I learned to float.

Maybe I had to hold on to a few rocks long enough to understand that loving a place doesn’t mean I can live there forever.

Or maybe I’m giving meaning to things because I don’t like the thought of having wasted time.

I don’t know.

I don’t even know if destiny exists the way I’m describing it.

This is just where my thoughts have taken me.

But I know the feeling of fighting something that’s already changing. I know how easy it is to call that fight strength. I know how much of life can pass while I’m busy refusing to let it pass.

And I wonder what I would have seen if I’d looked around more often.

The ride is the life

I used to think freedom meant getting life to go exactly where I wanted.

Now I wonder whether that would make me free at all.

Maybe I’d just become the guy in the river, angry at every bend because it wasn’t the bend he ordered.

Maybe destiny decides where the river ends. Maybe it doesn’t.

But here’s the thought I want to live with:

If the river is taking me somewhere anyway, I don’t want to spend the whole ride drowning in my efforts to go backward.

I want to feel the cold water.

I want to enjoy the warm parts without asking how long they’ll last.

I want to see the rocks before I hit them.

I want to look at the trees, the sky, the people floating beside me.

And when I come to a place I love, I want to love it while I’m there.

Not spend the rest of the river trying to get back to it.

Because one day I’ll reach the end of my ride.

And I don’t want my last thought to be that I spent the whole damn thing swimming.

I want to know I was there for it.