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They were holding on
They were letting go
Angels find themselves in doubt
Doubt is a strong ally on the road ahead. He did not realize this at first. Doubt was the challenger and he could not maintain focus without it. Unless doubt exists, the sacred texts remain unchallenged. When unchallenged, they mean nothing. They mean nothing at all. Those who do not appreciate doubt do not appreciate what they believe.
The first moment of doubt came in a pleasing form. Two months before his departure, he was greeted by a woman who was everything he had ever wanted in a companion. The feeling was mutual, and they represented each other's ideal lover and partner. He could have chosen this new path. Yet, he realized that to change directions at this point in his journey would put everything that happened from this point forward in her lap. It was not something he was prepared to do. He had made a decision to follow one path, a path littered with visions and prophesy, and to subvert that for this woman would have made her responsible for the rest of his life. His potential regrets would be her future guilt and sorrow. The change had to come, but he had moments of doubt when he was with her. To give up this kind of passion and happiness on an absurd journey into the unknown was a questionable decision.
Yet he realized that his love was eternal and unconditional. Not being with someone did not mean that he needed to stop loving someone. He never stopped loving her, and he never let his doubts change who he was. He let them enlighten him. It was the sign that there would be sacrifice on the road ahead. "This will be the hardest thing you will ever do."
His next moment of doubt would take a more abrupt and definitive turn. In frustration he would scream out loud to himself that he would no longer follow the path. He said he did not care about this waitress who appeared to him in dreams or the tale of the three queens who would teach him something about patterns in his life. He yelled about wanting to lead a normal life and be a regular person.
"Whenever you begin to take the wrong path,
you will receive a warning.
When your means of travel are lost, this will be the sign."
The morning of my self-defiance, I went to the grocery store. As I had for weeks, I pulled out of my street and took a left turn. This time was different. A speeding car came out of the proverbial "nowhere" and slammed into the side of my convertible. A dead-on collision into the driver's side door, shattering the driver's side window, bending the frame and throwing the convertible a thousand feet down the road and into a cable pedestal. I slumped down onto the steering wheel, feeling exhausted but never thinking about injury. A voice spoke to me from the passenger seat.
"You need to get out of the car.
You don't want to go to the hospital."
I sat up and forced the driver's side door open. I stepped out into the road, blinded by the sun, as my sunglasses had been shattered after my head collided with the driver's side window. A fire truck was already on the scene. An ambulance and two police cars were approaching from opposite directions. The fireman was walking across the street towards me with the jaws of life in his possession. He stopped, shocked that I was walking towards him and showed no sign of injury. He then continued towards the car and looked at the windshield.
"What happened to your passenger?"
I told him that I had been alone and he pointed towards the windshield. There was a round break in the windshield, the kind made when a human head hits the windshield with any decent degree of force. I continued to insist that there had been no passenger, but felt confused about my answer. After all, someone had spoken to me from the passenger seat immediately after the accident, but no one had been with me on my trip to the grocery store. I was asked if I was "okay" and I told him that I was and refused any medical attention. I then walked three blocks back to my apartment because I had forgotten my insurance papers there. Seems they require you to carry those in your car in Florida.
"Dude, are you alive?"
I ended up becoming friends with the manager from the repair shop my car was taken to. He had a very hard time believing that I had not even been injured in the accident. The car had over nine thousand dollars worth of damage. The impact bent the frame of the car and separated the front axel from the rest of the car. Four weeks later I was driving my little black convertible again. It felt and looked brand new. So did I. My faith in myself was tested and I accepted the path once again. My next moment of doubt would come a year and a half later. I ended up getting a flat tire in the middle of the night. It was only a passing doubt, but it was a sign that things were about to change dramatically.
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