Windows, walls, doors and destiny

(Originally posted 9/18/2008)

It has been said so many times the expression is now cliché; “God never closes a door without opening a window.” As best as I can gather, the phrase basically means we are never left without a way to get where we need to go, it just often isn’t the way we planned on or the one most convenient.

If you’ve ever heard me feign philosophic, you’re probably already aware of my belief that we do, indeed, end up exactly where we’re supposed to be in life. And while it may not be what we had planned or wanted, it is still, in a cosmic sense, right. Not that I count out free will entirely—I just think if we allow the path to unfold before us, it takes us to a place where there is enough for us.

Maybe the problem with any philosophical revelation born of a moment at the changing table with your child (see my earlier note “What I’ve learned so far; The cliff notes” if you’re left scratching your head here) is someone’s bound to come along and say something a bit better thought out.

Someone like Randy Pausch.

Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Melon University, became famous for a speech he gave known as the “last lecture.” Pausch was dying of pancreatic cancer at the time he delivered the inspiring glimpse into the nature of reality as he perceived it. And while he said many, many things worthy of contemplation, the one that woke me up in the middle of the night, echoing and clanging in my brain, was this; “Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things.”

The metaphorical walls of Pausch’s speech are rejection and roadblocks—the same things I take as signs that maybe a thing is just not meant to be.

Lately, my life has felt like a series of brick walls. I won’t bore you with the list of frustrations that compose my reality, but much of it boils down to this: at heart I am a writer, but I’m tired of being broke.

I would love to have something so worth saying that someone, somewhere, would pay me to write it. But so far all of my efforts to that effect have yeiled me my weight in rejection letters and little else.

But still, I love writing so much that I could keep the faith. I could.

Except.

Except there have been too many weeks to mention when I had to perform a miracle to get my daughter diapers or food. And while I’m well aware of the frivolity of new clothes and running shoes for myself, I honestly cry myself to sleep thinking of how I’ve failed my child.

So, thinking of the lesson I learned with Kathryn and the plastic bag (again, read the blog, it’s a little long to re-hash), I began to resign myself to the idea that I just was not meant to be a writer or a reporter. I was meant to work a series of wacky part-time jobs that pay minimum wage (check back soon for my story about how I’m working in a haunted forest out here—seriously).

Besides, these days, everyone’s a writer. The world is full-up with them, and doesn’t need me waiting in that same line. I figured if I was supposed to be doing something along those lines, that’s where I’d be, not starring at another friggin’ brick wall.

It was 3 a.m. last night when Pausch’s words reverberated so loudly in my mind that I sat up in bed.

My friend (and guru) Eli told me that when you need specific answers to specific questions in life, pray with intent. I know that many of you kind of mentally glaze over when you see the word “pray” in a blog, but stick with me because even if you don’t address God by name, I have a hard time believeing each of you hasn’t had at least one moment like the one I experianced at 3 a.m. A moment when the convential methods of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps (whatever those are) have failed, and all that’s left is a hail Mary pass thrown at the universe.

Desperate and broken (and hell, just plain broke) I asked this very specific question to God hoping in some way it would make life easier: “How am I supposed to know the windows from the walls?”

And in the midst of sleep deprivation and desperation, that seemed to make sense, but in the light of a new morning and a caffinated mind, I feel the need to clarify: What I meant was, how do you know if it’s time to walk away from a dream, or if it’s just time to fight harder?

I’m waiting for an answer. Maybe you’ll be the one to give it to me.