Nebulous Nature of Life’s Pivotal Moments: Part 1

My muse must be messing with me. And he must be into poetry right now, for today – like a few days earlier – I awoke with the stanza of a poem that is connected to a childhood memory marching through my mind. It’s the last part of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” a poem I was required to memorize during my sophomore year of high school. (Thank you, Mrs. Johnston.)

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Frost has kept me captivated with the nebulous nature of life’s pivotal moments from my first reading of this classic. The undeniable notion that a person’s life is forever changed by one choice is … well, undeniable, isn’t it? Ask people in prison, mothers in maternity wards, or company presidents now in either confining or comfortable quarters. Their lives changed instantaneously because of a choice they made, even if they were unaware of it at the time.

I’m certain mine has too – multiple times. Make that a multitude of times. Today my muse has reminded me of the moment I continue to ponder most; and no matter how many times I recount or relive that particular moment of divergence, I cannot decide if I took the road less traveled by or the one most people would have chosen. I can’t even decide if my choice was intentional or simply the product of picking the path of least resistance.

Perhaps you will be able to tell.

It was late in the spring of 2000, and …

Stay tuned
Part 2
.