The Only Life You Can Save Is Your Own

2007-12-12T13:35:00.000-08:00

I have finally come to the place where I am understanding that the only life I can save is my own. Sometimes this comes with hard choices and consequences. My whole life has been centered around pleasing others (which in its self is not a bad thing) to the detriment of my own well being. I have listened to the plaintive cry of others as in Mary Oliver's startling poem, The Journey. They have all said, "Mend my life".
The realization has come suddenly upon me that I can't be the one who 'fixes' everything. That some responsibilities are mine and some are not. I can't save anyone from their own loneliness or even shield others from the truth of their own life.
So now this is the road I walk down alone. The Journey expresses what is happening to me. I hope you get as much out of it as I have. It re-affirmed the Change gestating inside of me.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

A Poet's Notebook

The Only Life You Can Save Is Your Own