Drummers and Road Maps

Often, when I visit Ronni's blog I find her words thought provoking. Usually, I would comment in 'Pushing an Elephant up the Stairs', but on this occasion this seems the most appropriate forum. In a recent entry, inspired by questions asked by Clarence here, Ronni had this to say:

Clarence’s rumination begins:

What I'm wondering is this: What road-map have you followed through
your life? What drummer is playing the music you march to? Is there a guiding
influence, a small, quiet voice you hear that "suggests" a course of action to
take or which choice to make when several are available?

And it ends:
Is there a deeper purpose for your life? If so, what is
it? Where are you going? How will you get there? Is it really up to you to
decide? Who is it that determines what choices are set before you?

It is a valuable exercise, I believe, and an important step in maturing
into our later years to take such questions seriously and to revisit them
regularly. They cannot possibly be answered quickly and easily or maybe at all,
and there are no right or wrong answers - only personal ones. I have pondered on
this one many times: “Is it simply fate that has brought you to this point in
time? Do you ever feel…your course has been set by one much greater than
yourself?”

Reading both entries in full helped to give flesh to many of the new understandings that have been occupying me recently.

I have never been very good at reading maps. When I visit a new place I depend on other people to explain the route to me. It seems that I have been doing something very similar with my life. For almost as long as I can remember I have been searching for safety, for certainty. For that inner sense of stability that would allow me to move forward with confidence. Children look to others for this feeling of security until a time comes when their knowledge of who they are allows them to listen to the guiding beat of their own drums, to draw their own maps. A child who is never able to get to know themselves, too busy staying safe by trying to match their steps to those around them, is rarely able to meet their own needs or find a path of their own to follow.

This has been my life. Desperately attaching myself to the footsteps of others until the voice of my own drummer was silenced. Heard only as cries of rage and despair.

It has taken me a long time to understand that the safety I seek can only be found within. That I must let go of the chameleons masks and learn who it is who stands at the centre. My fear that I would find nothing. That the disguises would collapse like abandoned costumes to reveal nothing but emptiness, is groundless. There is a me. Fragile and ghost like perhaps, but she does exist and if I listen carefully, patiently, she will begin to beat her drum once more.