I have been “waxing nostalgic” as of late. First of all by reading blogs from my follow bloggers Josh and Amanda I began to think more of my place in life. It is so true like Amanda said in her blog “Sidekick” that we are created for adventure and that we have many selves that we present to the rest of the world. Josh reminded me in his blog “Feed it” that we have to keep “feeding” our visions to get to that final destination you want to be in, to keep going toward the vision you desire to see fulfilled. I am a sentimentalist, a dreamer, a questioner, a lover of life, and it is here in blog world that I get to do that for a few minutes. It is rare that I get to take the time to ask life’s questions, to dream, to be, except here in blogworld, where I feel free to say, be, me. Second, I mentioned before that I had joined Facebook, where I have come to find old and new friends, so I’ve been reminded of my “old” selves, my “old” lives.
This week I found an old friend from high school, one that I used to be close to, but one that was I was estranged from during my senior year, and thus a friendship that has long since been dissolved. She reminded me that I used to want to major in corporate law. It seems foreign to me that 1) I was once bold enough to walk away from a friendship, and 2) that I ever wanted to be mainstream. I suppose some may consider me to be mainstream today, but I’ve always felt that I walked to “the beat of a different drummer.” I remember myself too shy and too unconfident to ever walk away from my secure friendships, but somehow I survived a whole year without that friendship. It is much more complicated that I can detail here, but I digress. What if I had taken the path of most glory according to the world and became something like a doctor or a lawyer? Where would I be today? It is a strange thought to consider. I guess engineer counts toward that end, but I’ve never defined myself as an engineer, so I probably need special glasses to see myself that way.
I am so very glad that I am here in Birmingham with a husband and 2 kids and so very far from corporate Jamie that I guess I could have become. Because even though I was an engineer, corporate life never made me happy. Yes, I had a great sense of accomplishment, which I miss greatly, but the overachiever that I’ve always been would still not be happy if I did not bring glory to Father and do what He has created me to do. So I’ve been thinking about the road less traveled and the future path I will take when the kids get older. I was glad to talk to my old friend because during college my love for God grew and I always wanted to express both repentence and forgiveness to her. As I ponder and mesh all these thoughts together, I’m so very mindful of the Road Less Traveled, Robert Frost says it best:
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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