And being one traveler long I stood and looked down one as far as I could, to where it bent in the undergrowth.

Have you ever come to a point in your life when you've realized that you've crossed over a certain checkpoint and thus can never go backwards? A point that you can actually look at and say that one side of it was "before" and that this side of it is the "after"? That experience happened to me this past week. I entered it one person and have emerged another. I am myself as I was before only visually. The rest of me has shifted. Interiorly I am a completely new person. My life is taking a new direction. And I can not go back, nor do I want to.

I can still hear the old Sara at the edges of my thoughts. But I have gently closed the door on her, she is a part of my past. It is similar to those moments we all have had while growing up. Perhaps you realized when you were, say - 8 - that you are not the kid you were when you were 5. Maybe one day while driving around in your beat up car while 16 it suddenly hit you that you are no longer that kid you were at 12. Or maybe one day at 22 while walking into a store you almost stopped in your tracks and thought, "Wait a minute....I'm an adult!"

It's kinda like that.

It's kinda like that, but not entirely. I guess you could say I realized who I am, who I really am, and not who the world was making me.

Imagine this if you will: You are walking down a hallway, and at the end are two doors standing side by side. The hallway represents the path you are walking in life. It represents all your thoughts, your opinions, your mindset, your emotions, your personality and your trajectory. You realize, however, as you are walking, that you are litterally approaching a crossroads. You reach the end of the hall where the two doors are and realize you can go no further unless you walk through one of them. They open for you and at the same time you are presented with a mirror image of yourself looking back at you. It puzzles you at first. As far as you can tell the images have no differences. They look identical to you. However, you realize you must choose wisely and so you must literally reflect on each option in front of you.

As you reflect on your two reflections you begin to step closer to them, examining each one in turn. As you stare, you are beginning to notice the most subtle of differences. Perhaps the lighting is slightly different than the other. The smiles have a sublte difference to them. The contours of your face are a hair apart. The reflection in the eyes...that is what you really begin to notice. Both have a look about them that is familiar yet each is familiar in a different way. One looks like the you you are currently becoming. You notice a certain element of past familiarity. You can see something there that reminds you very much of yourself - as you are now. The other eyes look at you with an element of the unknown. This is the version of yourself you could become, but are not yet. These eyes are hinting at things you are not currently conscious of, but which exist just the same within you. What is more, it is a look you didn't even know was possible of yourself.

Now that you've been able to register the differences, you step back and survey the whole picture again. You have a choice to make. So....which do you choose? The person you understand now? Or the person who carries an aura of whom you would become should you chose to do so?

I have made my choice.