Roads and Webs
When I was a little girl I wanted to marry my high school
sweetheart, have five kids and maybe be a teacher in my spare time. It was that or be a nun. (The nun thing faded quickly…once I realized
that Sister Mary Ann made it look better than it was.) But the other plan was
pretty much what I wanted. I got through
high school and hey! Wait… there was no
high school sweetheart… well shoot…. I went to college and started to become a
teacher but… wow! that was a lot of school and a lot of responsibility – and if
I was going to have five kids, that would be a lot of juggling. Thus began the diverging path.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.
We all have “plans” for our lives. I think it’s taken me 40 years to realize that what we think of as plans – really don’t matter. Whether it’s God or Fate or if we’re all just whirling chaotically through space… plans don’t mean much. I think having a little bit of a hippie flippie personality – it’s easier for me to let go of some stuff and just go with it. But there are things I look back on with… regret? Experience? A little sorrow?
We all have “plans” for our lives. I think it’s taken me 40 years to realize that what we think of as plans – really don’t matter. Whether it’s God or Fate or if we’re all just whirling chaotically through space… plans don’t mean much. I think having a little bit of a hippie flippie personality – it’s easier for me to let go of some stuff and just go with it. But there are things I look back on with… regret? Experience? A little sorrow?
and sorry I could not travel both.
I think sometimes the diverging paths are so subtle and happen so gradually that you don’t realize how different it is from THE PLAN.
And be one traveler long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
until it bent in the undergrowth.
You end up where you end up. But some people have a harder time giving up on their plans. It’s perfectly understandable. From the time you’re like 4 years old people ask you what you want to be when you grow up. Plans start early.
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
I love where I am in life. I love the fact that I have accomplished the feat of almost raising an amazing son pretty much on my own. Would I have chosen single motherhood if I knew that was the path I was looking down? Hell no. It was hard. Hardest thing I’ve ever done. But now… I’m glad things worked out the way they did. I think it was for the best. Also, I love my career. I’m GLAD I’m not a teacher. I would have burnt out long ago.
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
I love where I am in life. I love the fact that I have accomplished the feat of almost raising an amazing son pretty much on my own. Would I have chosen single motherhood if I knew that was the path I was looking down? Hell no. It was hard. Hardest thing I’ve ever done. But now… I’m glad things worked out the way they did. I think it was for the best. Also, I love my career. I’m GLAD I’m not a teacher. I would have burnt out long ago.
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same
If I had had that high school sweetheart and those 5 kids…. Would I have ended up in a similar spot? Only having to take care of 5 instead of 1? Who knows? That’s the beauty of it… not knowing if you got the better or the short end of the stick. It’s also bittersweet.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
There was a point where I gave up on my five kids idea. No significant other, getting older, had one kid to raise on my own, sometimes barely staying afloat… I know I’ll never get that, and it did make me sad. I had the best intentions you know? How come it didn’t work out for me? Acceptance is hard when you feel like life isn’t fair. I’m a Libra. Life SHOULD be fair. This is where I’m not hippie flippie.
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
There was a point where I gave up on my five kids idea. No significant other, getting older, had one kid to raise on my own, sometimes barely staying afloat… I know I’ll never get that, and it did make me sad. I had the best intentions you know? How come it didn’t work out for me? Acceptance is hard when you feel like life isn’t fair. I’m a Libra. Life SHOULD be fair. This is where I’m not hippie flippie.
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I don’t think there’s just two paths. I think it’s more like a spider web. You start in the middle and you have almost
limitless places you can go… sometimes you loop back to where you started. Moving back home for instance, or getting
back together with someone. But there
are also those jumping off points…. Maybe you let the silk go and jump!… and
end up on someone else’s web. Leading
to another set of limitless possibilities. And sometimes you think that you’re
so far away from where you started, when in reality, you’re just one strand
over. I had a baby at 39 after not
thinking that was possible. It’s not
five kids (though she was the size of about 2!)
but it was something. A little
something that got me back to taste my plan… or the new version of my plan. I’m not a teacher but I work in
education. All the stuff I love but not
as much of the drudgery. Maybe the web
knows better sometimes.
We do have some control.
I mean, we make our beds, we have to lie in them. Financial issues from being a single mom is
not the way I want to spend my money or have follow me around for years
onward. I don’t want to be stuck in
Jefferson City seven and a half years later after moving here temporarily for five years…. Oh
wait, that was a plan. But if not for my
plans going askew, I would not be married to a wonderful man. I would not have the best daughter ever. I would not have a future that I’m excited to
see unfold.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
The original plan would have been easier, I suspect. But I don’t think we’re here for the easy way…. Those that are don’t get the full benefit, I don’t think. I wouldn’t know, the easy way has never come, well, easy to me.
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
The original plan would have been easier, I suspect. But I don’t think we’re here for the easy way…. Those that are don’t get the full benefit, I don’t think. I wouldn’t know, the easy way has never come, well, easy to me.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by.
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost
My 8th grade teacher, Mr. Stiefermann, made us memorize this poem. The words, punctuation, spelling, etc. I still remember it all. I’ve always liked it.
I took the one less traveled by.
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost
My 8th grade teacher, Mr. Stiefermann, made us memorize this poem. The words, punctuation, spelling, etc. I still remember it all. I’ve always liked it.
I don’t know that I’m looking for the meaning of life. I think maybe I’m looking for some meaning in
my life. I don’t have all the answers. I
don’t know how to make people happy, or satisfied with their lives. I don’t know how to fix it. But that’s what I want... I want us to be happy. I want us to be satisfied with what we have
and strive for what we want. I want us
to feel lucky about what we do have.
We have a lot of big decisions ahead of us. A lot of – gasp – plans to make. We need to pick our path together with our loved ones… and if we
veer off it – we need to do that together too.
We have a lot of paths in our separate pasts that everyone deals with. There’s no way around that. But if not for those paths, you would not be on the web you're on.
Whether that makes us spiders or hikers… I’m glad we made it. Let’s give it a chance. I suspect we can accomplish a lot given some
time … and maybe at some point, we’ll grab onto each other and that strand of
silk and…
JUMP!
