Mend my life

This has been a tough week. I got news that a big life change that I was hoping for isn't going to happen. I feel like I'm flailing, trying to get a grip on what my future will look like without this dream. I don't know what to do next or how to fill the hole that the dream had occupied. (Oh my, that sounded particularly melodramatic. It's kind of my theme this week.)

By chance, this poem appeared in some newsfeed or timeline of mine this week. I had read this poem before, but it seems to be especially relevant this week. I can't stop reading it.

The Journey
by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—

though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.