Life Journeys - Alexandra Brown

I read a passage in The Ritual Process. It said, "It is only when the symbolic path from the unknown to the known is complete that we can look back and comprehend its final form," (p 20). Something about this quote struck me. I have no idea if i'm interpreting this correctly, but to me, this meant that while you're on a journey, you may not know the purpose of it. It is only when it is complete that you can look back and see WHY you traveled down that path. I struggled with this a lot recently. At the beginning of the semester, I started dating my ex-boyfriend from high school. Long story short, we dated...I broke up with him for stupid reasons...we talked on and off, but it wasn't that much. Then recently (over the course of the summer), we started talking a lot (multiple times a day). We hit it off, and started dating at the end of August. Well...my end to my journey may not be "known", but now that I look back on everything I've been through since we first dated, I can see WHY it all happened. In high school we were young, and very dumb. I let my best friend break us apart, and obviously I wasn't ready for something serious. I mean, come on...we were in 10th grade. But since then, i've learned so much about being in a healthy relationship, and now...it's pretty amazing. I know my experience is nothing like a ritual, and I think that quote was talking about the preparations for a ritual, or possible the ritual itself, but I like to think that it does pertain to my situation. It's only NOW that I can look back and see just how good those 6 years were for the both of us.

Turner, Victor. The Ritual Process. New York City, NY: Aldine De Gruyter, 1969. Print.