Full Circle

If you had to represent life as a diagram, how would it look? Some people think its like this:

The Circle of Life

Others think its like this: 

The Line of Life

Here’s my current view:

The Line of Life with Circles

Life is a series of stages. Each stage has a beginning, but it seems that every stage ends where it started – like a circle. That’s how I currently feel about Costa Rica. My time is at its end but I feel like I’m coming back to the beginning. It’s like I never left home and yet I’ve come back a different person. I have to return to regular life and try to hang on to the new things I've discovered and learned. It's hard to hold on to the new when the old is so comfortable, so easy.

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.

Anais Nin

You may wonder, 'How can I leave it all behind if I am just coming back to it? How can I make a new beginning if I simply return to the old?' The answer lies in the return. You will not come back to the 'same old thing.' What you return to has changed because you have changed. Your perceptions will be altered. You will not incorporate into the same body, status, or world you left behind. The river has been flowing while you were gone. Now it does not look like the same river.

Steven Foster

May each of us find a way to change for the better.