cross the bridge

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

to move decisively from one situation, phase, or place to another, committing to change rather than remaining on the near bank of uncertainty; the phrase is often used in the fuller form cross that bridge when we come to it — meaning not to worry about future problems before they arise — but standing alone it signals the moment of actual transition, the crossing of a threshold that separates the familiar from the new; for migrants and refugees the image of crossing a bridge resonates with the literal and metaphorical passages they undertake — borders, seas, checkpoints, bureaucratic thresholds — and with the irreversibility of major life transitions that reconfigure one's world