the way we were or weren't

"Surrender is the crossover point of life.

It distinguishes who I was from who I have become.

Surrender comes in grand ways and in small ones,

but, sooner or later, I must admit, that there is no turning back

from the rejection or the loss or the turn of age or the abandonment.

Life as I had fantasized it is ended.

What is left is the spiritual obligation to accept reality

so that the spiritual life can really happen in me."

-Joan Chittister, Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope p. 59

Accepting the spiritual obligation of entering or staying in reality

is difficult but it's truly the only way to move forward in order

to give up the hope of a known past for an unknown future.

(And some days I need a good dose of Joan Chittister

to get my head on straight!)

And why this picture you ask?

The last scene of "The Way we Were" fits this part of the quote -

"Life as I had fantasized it is ended."

Yes, Hubbell and Katie reconnect here for one moment

(& why doesn't Hubbell make the top baby name list every year?)

and in that moment there is the fantasy of "what if & what was" in his eyes....

cue the tissues....