One Door Closes …

I ran across this picture in the last few days. It's a pleasant picture. It’s a pleasant doorway. It seems to be a door that would lead someone from one pleasant place to another pleasant place. One garden to another garden. One world to another world. And it seems to do it rather gracefully.

I feel like I am in that doorway now. And the room behind me, I am satisfied, was a beautiful room full of rich objects that pleased the heart and enriched the soul. At the Retirement Dinner last Thursday night where my biography was published in a booklet along with the biographies of 22 others and a person of my choice reviewed my forty-two year career, I felt myself moving out of one space and into the doorway. After months, after years, of anticipation of this day, I can finally see out that doorway and into the next space in my life. I cannot see it in minute detail, but it seems a pleasant place; one that, with a little work, a few select plantings and some refurbishing, could be a very pleasant space indeed.

At this point in my life, I have come to believe that there are three stages to this move, very much like the three stages of moving from one space to another. The first stage is experiencing the first space to the fullest, staying as long as you want, and as long as you are improving, the space. But you know, in your heart of hearts, when it is time to move to the doorway.

Standing in the doorway is the second step. That step allows you to still feel the comfort of the space you once occupied while getting a better view of the space you are moving toward. That step is a difficult, yet necessary, step. Once you are in the doorway, the open expanse of the new space comes into view. You have not entered it, yet you see all of its enticements, and all of its possibilities. And you want to take the third step.

This week is the last one of a forty-two year career. I stand in the doorway. A few nights ago, I posted memories of the beginning of that career. In future nights, I might share more. As far as what my plans are for the space ahead of me, I really don’t know. I will have to evaluate its potential, explore its limits and just spend some time there. But I know one thing for sure. I want to take the step.