Life’s Winding Path
By Laura Pizmoht
5/19/23
When I graduated from college, I thought I knew life’s path. Go to law school. Get a job. Get married. Have a family. You know the drill. And yes, I did all of those things, but as I look back on the path I took, it looks absolutely nothing like a straight line.
When I first entered the workforce after law school, I felt compelled to earn as much money as I could to pay off my student loans, but then I had my first child and my husband and I decided to make the financial sacrifices necessary for me to stay home with our children until our youngest entered kindergarten. I figured I could practice law well into old age, so why miss out on this important time with my family? So that’s curve number one in my life path.
In the meantime, I picked up a running habit, ended up being weirdly good at it and won many local races including a marathon. I never saw that coming! Curve number two.
But navigating those curves, particularly deviating from my career path to stay home with my children, afforded me many opportunities that I couldn’t have pursued as a full-time working mom. I taught at my former law school. I founded a popular women’s running website. I served on city council. Each of these opportunities was incredibly enriching and each taught me many skills and brought me important relationships that have contributed to my successes today. Plus, as I wound my way through that twisty part of my life’s path, my children and I spent time together that we will forever cherish.
Once my youngest daughter began school, I figured my path would straighten out again. After my experience on city council, I realized I had a passion for public service, so, rather than going back on the corporate tax route, I enthusiastically joined a law firm that represented several area municipalities. It was a challenge being on a path that demanded I balance the needs of my family with a full-time career, but I was hitting my stride and making it work.
A couple of years down the path of my return to the practice of law, I approached another curve. I was offered a job to lead the civil division of the Ashtabula County Prosecutor’s office. This path came with a pay cut and a terrible commute, but the work was really exciting. One thing I knew for sure was that no matter where my path lead, I wanted to make the most of whatever opportunities I encountered along the way and this path felt like one on which I could make a real difference. I had to take it.
I had no idea that just a few months later, my path would take the sharpest turn imaginable. Shortly after I went down the county prosecutor path, the path where I expected to continue be a successful working mom, I didn’t just hit a fork in the road, it felt like my entire path crumbled before my eyes.
In August of 2021, I was diagnosed with an aggressive, advanced and rare form of cancer called leiomyosarcoma.
Needless to say, this diagnosis came as an incredible shock: How could that happen to me? I was relatively young, I ate healthy, I ran marathons for goodness sake?! Dying young, leaving my children motherless, no way this was how my life’s journey could possible end! Was this the end of my path?
In those first weeks of grappling with my new reality, I struggled to see a way forward. I was terrified that my path would abruptly stop. Then, one day I was receiving a chemo infusion at the hospital and the hospital chaplain, Sally, sat down next to me. We began talking and after a few minutes I finally felt comfortable enough to tell her what was really on my mind. “Sally, I just don’t know how much time I have left”, I said through tears. Sally didn’t miss a beat and said, “Laura, none of us does”.
Now I don’t tell you this to depress you! I tell you this because in that moment I realized that, 1) I’m not alone, but 2) I thought my meandering life’s path with all its twists and turns existed solely to get me to some as yet understood destination.
But when Sally reminded me that none of us knows how much time we have left, that none of us knows what that final stop on our journey looks like, I realized our paths are not about that final stop at all.
Every twist, fork and curve on our path is both an adventure and an opportunity: to do; to grow; to love. It doesn’t matter what shape the path is. It doesn’t matter how long the path is. What matters is what we experience, what we do, and what we share along the way. So as you set off on the next part of your journey, may you savor every step and every opportunity that you encounter along your winding life’s path.
