Crossing the Line

Sometimes I feel like I live in this constant struggle of what it means to "cross the line." That imaginary place that everyone seems to know. If you cross the line, do you risk losing everything? Do you risk exposing your feelings for the chance that someone will feel the same back (about love, your work, anything)? Do you sit back and decide against a leap of faith to adhere to a more practical and passive approach - guarded and afraid to cross that line? Or do you cross it and gracefully accept whatever the outcome - whatever the consequence. (The consequences are the here and now as well as what is yet to be in the future).

Where is the balance?

Who I am as a person says "always cross the line." Cross it with abandon! Cross it because you should not wait! Cross it because if you lose it, it was never really yours to begin with. Recent experience says, perhaps you should wait and let someone else cross it first. Be practical. Be cautious. My own history tells me that the times I was most afraid to cross the line are those that I should have not waited, not dwelled but should have held faith in my hand and made the leap across. My history is what makes me look back now and know how different things would be, had I not been too afraid to cross that damn line.

I am wondering if this is perhaps one of the lessons we must all learn. Crossing the line is so hard because it forces us to accept the consequences of our actions. It makes us ultimately responsible for the decisions we make. It eliminates the ability for us to blame anyone but ourselves.

I am constantly reminded that I always have a choice, a path, or a clearing. What I choose to do with it is always up to me...What I have learned is that sometimes the decisions we are most afraid to make are probably the ones most in need of making.