Turnstiles

You don’t get to go back through the same way you came.

After catching up with a dear friend and former colleague this morning, I found myself thinking about the doors we walk through in our lives. 

Some are obvious. The big ones we spend hours, days, maybe years turning over before we finally step through. Others feel small at the time. Decisions we make quickly, almost without thinking. 

My life is full of them. 

Not all of them felt like the right choice. Some were painful. Others barely registered when I made them, only to realize later how much they had changed my life in ways I couldn’t have imagined. 

They weren’t doors. 

They were turnstiles. 

Once you step through, there’s no going back the way you came. The path forward is changed, whether you like it or not. 

Not just the big ones. Even the small, forgettable ones. 

I used to argue with that. I believed I could undo things. That if I tried hard enough, I could put things back the way they were. 

Get the toothpaste back in the tube. 

Now, in the back half of my sixties, I see it differently.  

The greater harm is in trying to go back. 

The very nature of a turnstile is that it forces a choice. And once you move through it, another one is already in front of you. 

Stay where you are, or move forward. 

There were times I couldn’t get through that next one fast enough. 

One of them led me to ask questions I had been avoiding for years. 

It led me to my wife, Marilyn.

To therapy.

To writing.

To a life I wouldn’t trade with anyone. 

And still, I spent years regretting that first painful turnstile. 

The thing about regret is that it can be a teacher, or it can be a master. 

Clearly, the harm we cause others isn’t something to ignore or write off. Once we see it, the responsibility is to stop, and then do what we can to repair it. 

But we also have to face this: the person we harmed can’t go back any more than we can undo what we did. 

I can’t begin to count the number of times a memory from my past has stopped me cold. Sometimes it’s something small. A photo. A song. And suddenly I’m there again. Remembering. Regretting. 

There comes a point when there’s only one choice left. 

To forgive ourselves. 

And that just might be the hardest turnstile of all to step through. But what option do we really have? 

As I caught up with my friend this morning, our conversation turned to writing, and I found myself smiling. 

She was the one who sent me a link to a class at Lighthouse Writers in Boulder. Introduction to Novels and Memoirs. 

I remember laughing. 

Yeah, right.

I almost didn’t step through that one. 

But I did. 

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