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Have you ever gotten a glimpse of a possible outcome? Like, one for yourself, a future you way on down the road?

This year has been, and will continue to be, full of many little milestones. Moments where I pause in the Ordinary Time of Life and remember exactly where I was one year ago today. The end of 2006-2007 marked so many turning points: a gradation of events that when finished, mapped a very clear bend in the road. Something Significant Had Changed.

In so many ways, it was like the frog in the water, the amphibian focused on the goal of jumping into the water, ever curious, and not noticing for quite some time how hot it was getting. And like boiling or freezing temperatures, so comes the darkness, and sometimes depression, and sometimes awakening. With the coming dusk ends the day and so is born the night. Watching someone descend into mental illness is exactly like that at times…their world becomes darker and they grope and struggle, not really seeing, and all the while the ones around are just becoming aware, their eyes adjusting to what is really happening, an awakening under moon rise.

One of my milestones is the day that I saw the Old Hag. I remember with clarity where I was, what I could smell, what I could hear. My feet can still feel the floorboards of the porch under my bare toes. And the Old Hag was just a glimpse in my mind of where I was going if I didn’t change my course fast.

Who is she? She is unhealthy. She looks years and years older than her linear age. Her parade to the doctor’s office for mysterious and persistent pain is incessant. She never smiles. Her primary talent is motivating those around her with guilt. She can’t understand her world, doesn’t see her own role in how it came to be, and feels continually alienated. So far removed from what a functional relationship looks like, she doesn’t even think twice anymore when the man in her life smears her face in her mistakes or makes her feels small or pushes her into the wall; she can see his point. She’s no ballerina but she’s skilled at walking on tiptoe; fear can sometimes be disguised as grace. She longs for her children’s baby days because that is the last time they looked up to her and were kind…she’s not sure she understands why they are they way they are now, distant, disdainful, self-interested, and angry. She will die younger than she should and hopes that the Ones She Stayed For will appreciate her sacrifice when she’s gone. With a heavy sigh, she goes on through her days, sometimes thinking of What Could Be or Could Have Been, never quite seeing her own responsibility to change what she can.

The Old Hag was a Black Hole I was staring into. I knew women like this, some quite close to my situation, but the glimpse was more than recognizing an example: she was representative of what kind of fruit comes from the seed I was growing in my life’s garden. And that is what stabbed so profoundly: the marriage of an idea and a reality. It was a moment of “I am not making this up” clarity and my dazed mind stumbled over to my favorite rocking chair.

It was just a few seconds…how often we have passing thoughts and move on with our days inattentive to them. But my head still ached from last night’s fight and my back was sore…I’d developed some kind of strange pain that the doctors couldn’t pin point and I’d gone from x-ray to bone scan to physical therapist trying to find out what it was. Driving was insanely painful, as was sitting at my desk. I didn’t know then that abused women frequently have acute pain, recurrent infections, cancer, and a seemingly endless list of symptoms that often disappear when they leave their abusers. But in that little morning, with brisk early autumn air brightening everything, I sat and rocked and pondered Who I Was Becoming.

It’s not why I left. That would be absurd…The Leaving was a such a climatic combination of years of issues, evidence that things were worsening rather than improving, and in the end, true and imminent danger that required a friend and a priest’s help in order to escape. But I know the idea of her propelled at least a portion of my action then and tremendous amount of my effort in the aftermath as I worked on healing. I don’t want to be her, don’t want that to be my End of Days.

And in a funny way, Oprah helped! How, pray tell? Well, Ms. Oprah is in her 50’s. And she makes it look like the new 20’s. She’s hot and vibrant and energetic. She’s getting things done and trying new ventures. She’s a heroine for an evolutionary life that continues to find new challenges. And I knew the Old Hag was in her 50’s too, maybe approaching 60. It became a sort of contrast for me to watch. Did I want the red pill or the blue pill? My own little Matrix choice, one of many in the process of awakening to What Really Was. Facing denial is what I had to do: the truth had been there all along.

The Old Hag today is just my example for that one choice. I think we get many of them along way if we choose to pay attention to them. When we are having weight issues, we might see a diabetic future and clothing struggles and decide to change. Or, when we’re racking up credit debt, maybe we a vision of ourselves walking into bankruptcy court and decide to sit down and write a budget instead. Choices are points on a path and if you look behind you, you can see the trend. Look ahead and you might see a trajectory path, not unlike a great hurricane. Sure it can still make a final turn before hitting land but that doesn’t always happen. Storms don’t have wills of their own (despite what we may come to think by naming them) but people do. If your path ahead is taking you somewhere you don’t want to go, and you have any power to change it, chances are even a slight lean in the right direction will start a new trend.

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