gone away

"The friends who met here and embraced are gone, 

Each to his own mistake;"

W. H. Auden

Recently I've been treading the dark paths of past choices and the past of painful days and nights. Embracing the darkness by taking a counseling class for someone like me is either an act of incredible foolhardiness or incredible valor. Whichever it proves to be, I have chosen to delve into the murkiness that is my past and retrieve more knowledge of who I am and why I am that way. 

I have had many choices in my life. Some seemed less choice than compulsion yet even in these there was the choice to turn aside. 

As someone who has traveled far from his origins I am occasionally asked how I got to the place I now reside. Whether that place is physical or metaphysical the question causes me to wonder. Which of the many crossroads that I traveled through was the essential one? Was there a moment when I could have gone south instead of north? 

I used to fear that each crossroads was fraught with massive loss and incredible disaster if chosen wrong. 

Looking back, I'm not sure if the other paths that were more widely trodden would have led to disaster, but what I can tell is they wouldn't have led to here. 

I'm sitting by my wife in our snug little home, with the certainty that there is no one I'd rather be with, nor anywhere I'd rather be. 

I made some unusual choices in my journey and they took me far from the people I grew up beside. I made hard choices and soft choices, I made wise choices and foolish choices but in all of them I endured the results and kept pushing onwards toward the hope that what I wanted was a real place and not Utopia. 

I've reached many of the destinations I dreamed of. I am happily married to the most dream-like of wives. I work in the most amazing field, doing the job I have always dreamed of doing and doing it well. I have friends who I admire, and I have no enemies that I fear. 

I began a journey almost 18 years ago..... I am so glad I took the path less traveled by..... Only the most unusual of paths could possibly led to here. But only God knows where the other paths would have led.  My gifts, personality and passion would have gone with me no matter the path. So perhaps all paths would have ended somewhere wonderful. But they certainly wouldn't have ended here.....

I've been hurting today from remembering the dark places I've walked through in life. But finally I've reached a place where I can see both where I've been and where I am, and through the haze of distance I can just barely glimpse what is just ahead. 

I chose the path less traveled by and it ensured I would truly go away....