# 179 LIFE'S CONTINENTAL DIVIDE

She parks her car at the workplace and climbs out and makes her way to the entrance doors. Her feet feel as if they are tarred to the concrete. Yet when she manages to lift one foot, and readies it for a next step, it slams down hard, as if drawn by a powerful magnet. And she is aware of a dizzy weakness in head and body that makes each step, each progressive movement, an act that requires a collected effort and concentrated will.

She moves her hand to the latch of the entryway. She pulls at the door. It is heavy. So heavy. She stands for a moment with her hand on the latch, contemplating the heaviness, and thinking about how things used to be. How she used to come to work. Jumping out of her car every morning with such enthusiasm. Walking with briskness across the parking lot and bounding in a ‘lighter’ door with such positive expectation.

But no more. As she stands there this morning, asserting a better strength to open the door, she realizes that this is the way each morning has been now for more than two months. It is a revelation she must learn to accept and absorb. It is a marker that indicates Life’s Continental Divide. That unique summit that marks the division of waters that flow in opposite directions. She must have left the marker behind, without noticing, but now she is suddenly slammed with the awareness that weakness and fatigue will be her daily portion as she skids down the other side.

But she can deal with it. It’s nothing more than mind over matter. She will, of course, be at a slight disadvantage and maybe somewhat less creative now that she cannot walk and move and think in synchronized automation. Now that each physical effort requires mental contemplation, to create the will and to qualify the effort. Difficult, yes. But with a fulcrum of brave assertiveness she is convinced she can orientate herself to this opposing direction and reduce the fatigue of physical friction and drag.

She remembers her first fascination with the Continental Divide on a road trip. How beautiful the approach to the summit was. And having reached the summit, surprised that the other side had the same beauty. The sun as bright, bird songs as sweet, flowers as profuse. Perhaps Life's Continental Divide is no different. Having reached that unique point where life flows in opposite directions, perhaps beyond that point there will be another dimensional plane of equal beauty.