By Debbie Olujobi

A bridge by definition is a structure built to connect areas separated by uneven or unpassable terrain; bridges are built over bodies of water and they make travel by land shorter and even possible. Bridges are a necessity for travel and our cars and trains travel on them constantly.

Not all travel is physical and we move in other terrains. Our Spirit travels on the bridge of religion while our emotions travel on the bridge of love or affection. A foundation for an emotional/spiritual bridge is laid with every hello and it can carry us for a day or even a lifetime. The bridge can carry a person, a family or a whole race if the structure is sound enough.

There are quite a few tales of physical bridges collapsing due to shoddy engineering, some came crashing under the weight of too many tonnes, while some were bombed as acts of war. Emotional and spiritual bridges serve exactly the same purpose as their physical counterparts and they also come crashing for the same reasons as their concrete cousins.

Conviction is a trait we all should live by and an emotional or spiritual bridge can be built or broken where there is a strong conviction in place one way or the other. In place of shoddy engineering, deceit and malice are the major components of shaky emotional bridges, while heartbreak and hurt can be the bombs that put it asunder.

So what I am trying to decide is whether people are the bridges or the emotions they elicit. If people are the bridges, then it would be a criss cross conundrum of bridges to build and navigate through a life time, there would be way too many bridges to build and blow up.

On the other hand what if emotions were the bridges and not the people we feel them for? That would make a lot more sense as we could then use one bridge for many journeys and to connect to different places. It would still be possible for the said bridges to collapse or explode but it just means that we would have to put in the work to maintain our bridges and even fix them when they come tumbling down.

Life doesn’t always go as we plan and I am finding that an emotional or spiritual bridge is a structure we all need to navigate life’s journeys.

A person cannot be  a bridge for another in an emotional or spiritual way. It would be way too heavy for anyone to be expected to carry the weight of another person’s hopes and expectations; they would collapse, just like a physical bridge that is overloaded.

A spiritual bridge is also not without its perils; people tend to pass on responsibility of their fates and fortunes to their chosen belief and deity and its a major cause for disillusionment. A spiritual bridge is a choice we make for spiritual enlightenment and elevation; its not a lottery ticket we buy in the blind faith that our fortunes will suddenly change.

Spirituality is a choice to grow and discover a heightened sense of being and living; that bridge can strengthen or destroy every other bridge we build. It cant be a person, no one person is God and they shouldn’t be ascribed that position by design or purpose.

It is very liberating to come into the realisation that the bridges that carry us through life don’t always have to be destroyed if and when some relationships come to an end. I made a conscious effort to make love my primary expression a long time ago and its been my bridge in good and bad times. I also have made the painful mistake to get so carried away by some people that they became bridges with the result that my heart was broken not once but quite a few times.

Those experiences, painful as they were forced my eyes and even heart to open wide enough to the reality that love is the only real bridge worth building. Another major realisation is that I don’t need to let everyone travel on my bridge and where necessary i can kick people off the bridge so they don’t break it.

Its a painful fact that some of my bridges are dented, some are in fact broken but I have a plan. The plan is to shore up the foundations I have laid for my bridges such that it can carry all I’ll need and for those that are broken, I will build again brick by brick. The goal is that I build and maintain just one bridge.

That my bridge would be founded on a foundation of eternal truth in a light that has no variableness  and that this bridge takes me through this side of of life into eternity, to find rest and lay my head on the bosom of the one who is Love.