Rearview Mirror

 

The Journey Community broke up twenty-two years ago, last February. It’s receding fast in my rearview mirror. Where are you on the scale of perspective regarding Journey? Where am I? The scale runs from people who are still angry after more than two decades to those who think with fondness of the many things that went right, and see them as a sort of launching pad for good things that happened subsequently. (Thank you Susan, for that lovely sentiment.)

 

It is not my intention to turn this web site into a forum for a discussion about whether Journey was good or bad. I believe it was both. I also believe that if that question is still important to you, you should write a book about it. For me, it’s all a matter of perspective -- a matter of how you live your life today.

 

I can’t pretend to know the impact Journey had on each person who was involved. I know some people who were changed for the better as a result of their involvement. I know a few people who were not. And, I know others who think that they were negatively impacted by what happened to them there. Of the handful of people I’ve spoken with recently, most believe that Journey had a positive effect on them, while at the same time acknowledging that some things also happened that made them unhappy, or frightened or angry. I’m in that group. In the ten years I was involved, things happened that made me feel all those things. For many years I believed they all happened because of Journey. Now I know, they would have happened anyway. The circumstances might have been different, the outcome almost certainly would have been, but without a doubt I would have gone through the same growing pains and experienced the same joy, sadness, anger, pain, fear and pleasure even had there never been a Journey. Shit happens.

 

But some things would not be the same, not for me. Journey helped me grow up emotionally at a very young age. Journey taught me to listen to others. Journey enabled me to empathize with the pain other people feel even if I don’t understand its cause. Journey showed me the value of family. And most of all, Journey introduced me to the best people I would ever know and, for a too brief time, the best friends I would ever have.

 

Does this mean I think Journey was unequivocally wonderful? No. Journey could have been so much more than it was. It had many and serious faults. When it ended I was unapologetically glad to see it go, and to this day, I have no desire to go back and try it again. Yet, I am still a better person for having been part of it and having shared a significant part of my life with the people who were Journey.

 

Just as people have feelings about Journey, the institution, they also have feelings about the individuals who made up that organization; again, both positive and negative. Did we sometimes hurt each other? Did we, at times, behave badly? Did we make mistakes? Were we at times selfish, arrogant, and insecure? Yes, yes, yes and yes. Did we love one anther? Did we try to do the right thing? Were we there for each other? Yes, yes, and yes. Outside my family, I’ve rarely experienced the same depth of feeling.

 

I’ve come to believe that the bad stuff happened too long ago to dwell on and the good stuff is too important to forget. My hope for this web site is to help us all reclaim the positive feelings that existed, and to forgive the rest. It’s past time for both to happen.