"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
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,
And having perhaps the better claim
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 marked 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."
by Robert Frost
It was absolute blue skies this morning when I woke up, as far as the eye could see. So having run low on underwear, I jumped at the chance to do laundry and leapt out of bed to make my laundry run before class at 10am.
To make full use of the blank time while waiting on the 25-minute washing cycle at the laundrette, I was doing my required reading for my tutorial. Out of the corner of my eye, I was observing this tall Aussie guy fumbling around for coins. Sure enough, he rocked up to me and asked for change from my little bag of $1 coins. I commented on his cool racing jacket, and he thanked me, and that was the end of conversation for me.
But I guess that wasn't so for him, because he settled in on the bench next to me, and stared so long at my textbook that I was shamed into talking with him lest I appeared anti-social. So we started chatting, and really, he was a nice guy. With the very Aussie look of blond hair, clear blue eyes, nice build and all. His job was to prospect for gold up to the north of Perth (aha! must be rich cos workies are really well paid), he liked to race motorbikes with his mates at the racing track on weekends, and did crazy fun things like racing down Broadway (the road I live on) in 3-man teams with the green garbage bins!
I could tell he was interested in me, cos a girl always knows, and well, also cos he asked if I had a boyfriend. To which I flashed my big diamond ring at him. He wasn't attached. Yep, I asked.
We parted at the pavement outside of the laundrette. And as I walked away lugging my heavy laundry bag, my mind was full of images of me cruising down the highways of Western Australia as a bike pillion, with a cool driver who look remarkably like the laundrette guy.
Getting attached all the way from an early age of 18 till now to the same guy is my path in the yellow woods. From where I stand, the other path looks like a singlehood with new guys and first dates, full of ups and downs. I do feel this tinge of.. i dunno.. regret? That the crossroads with a choice of dating other guys are behind me now. It's all too easy to imagine that the other path is better, more exciting, more fulfilling. But we can't have it all; no one can.
Because I'm the kind of person who wants to have it all in life, it take some reining in of my greed and over-imaginative mind to be able to fully appreciate what's already in my life. As I get older, I find myself getting better at this. Maybe it's because I'm starting to have more faith that life has gone this way, brought me to where I am now because I'm living out God's plan for me.
As I look back on the long way that Aldran and I have come. I realise that ours too, has been an exciting path filled with both happy and sad times. Companionship is a beautiful thing, and as life's inevitable pressures land gradually on my shoulders, I have also come to realise that it is a precious thing. It's that feeling of reaching out in the dark and always knowing that a hand will grip mine. It's that warm feeling of going home, after a long and weary day of work, to the comfort and embrace of my loved one. It's the gratitude of having learnt something of temperance, patience, faith and love from my better half and our relationship.
And for me, that's the difference.
