The mirror of my memories

As I combed through a pile of aging pictures, cognizant that the waxy texture under my fingers harkened back to a different time.

Gazing at the pictures that were strewn about, I reached for a pile, singling one out for further inspection.

I held the edges of the picture, realizing that I was lost, trapped within the confines of a stare, slowly tumbling into the house of mirrors that are my memories.

Once upon a time, I was younger and more idealistic.

Seeing this younger me encased within the picture – proudly wearing an omnipresent smirk that seemed to fuel a fire of haughtiness that was part and parcel of the younger me.

Had I known, would I have heeded the warnings?

Would I have steered away from the rocks positioned in the oceans of what was to come in my future?

Or would that smirk emerge victorious to prove itself to be a false prophet?

As quickly as the mirrors of the past pulled me in, they were just as abrupt in spitting me out. I dropped the picture like it was a piece of molten lava and watched it flutter onto the table before coming to a stop.

Realizing that the passage of years has been instructive.

That fire that I thought was at my beck and call has been extinguished by the waters of humility.

My knees have bent to the reality and the wisdom that I don’t have everything or anything figured out.

The boldness of my proclamations, replaced with the earnestness of supplication which fuels the inquisitiveness that is my search – for God’s face.

Accordingly, I walk down narrow paths that widen at a moment’s notice while my faith compels me to continue on – with the promise of my being made whole hanging in the balance.