Recently someone tried to convince me that starting over is never a good idea; it just doesn’t work. Essentially she was saying that one needs to just stay in the pit one has dug and continue plodding, maintain the status quo of the circumstances and people one finds oneself with. I understand the Biblical principle behind her adamance to never start over (Peter’s example of a sow returning to wallowing in the mud, or Paul’s question as to why the Galatians were returning to the weak and beggarly rules they started out with which led them from the school master to grace).

I also dislike being bumped back home or to the hospital as much as the next person playing Careers or Monopoly or other reality games. While I understand the necessity to refrain from continually running away and starting over, I have found that retracing one’s steps is often beneficial to ascertain why one went to the kitchen in the first place, what one was thinking of, desiring and wanting, before allowing oneself to be distracted by outside urgencies or circumstances and the daily stresses of life.

So, pardon me, if, in my mid-life quest to be all that I can be and all that my Higher Power asks of me, I decide to return to square one, a mile marker with clear directions.

Though it appears to some that I am starting over, I am actually still standing expectantly on the beach waiting for the next big wave – not just any wave, but a true quintessential pipeline, something I can ride all the way into port; “or be content to sail with God the seas,” as Emerson penned.