Scintilla #7– What have been the event horizons of your life – the moments from which there is no turning back?
There are times in our life when we stand at an intersection and more often than not it requires hindsight to know we were even there. Yogi Bera once said, “When you come to the fork in the road, take it,” and perhaps that is the best possible advice. Either way, whatever decision we make will irrevocably affect our lives going forward.
And that hot day in June when my husband said to our lawyer, “Yes. Close his easement,” it unleashed a series of events that would irrevocably change my life.
It might have been the air conditioner blowing a chilly wind that made me shudder, but it might have been that second sense I developed after years of working the emergency room, that second sense that tells us we ought to proceed with caution.
Whatever else I have learned from what followed, one thing is certain. The next time I am tempted to aggressively engage others in any grand design to make things better or to avoid loss and destruction, I will remember that pivotal moment in the lawyer’s office. Because to win sometimes we lose more than we gain.
What made us think, expatriates in another country, we knew enough or understood enough, to enter into a legal battle over an easement?
I do not know the answer to that. but my husband was convinced he would rather fight than give in to neighbors traipsing across our land.
[This is an excerpt from a memoir. Thanks to the fine people over at The Scintilla Project, I edited this little passage, the moment where there was no turning back.]
If you’d like to take part, follow this link or click on their icon in the right-hand menu. It’s fun. It’s Scintilla- a fortnight of storytelling.
Sarah C Morgan 