The Road Not Taken

I was thinking this weekend, and discussed with my husband, how it seems that life has just gone on as usual for the rest of the world. I know there are many others like me, who deal with life-altering medical conditions.  It seems as though many of my friends and family have taken a direction that I will not be able to travel. It makes me think of the Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken. Check out the whole poem at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173536.  A poem where he reaches a fork in the road, takes the path that is less worn and used, but then thinks back and wonders what it would have been like to travel the other path. The last stanza of the poem reads:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

I feel as though I am on that less travelled path. I am not sure if it is better or worse. What I am doing now is different than what I thought I would be doing at this point in my life. The friends I thought would be travelling with me are on the other path. I am making some new friends this way, but I miss what I have left behind and for what is now out of my reach ahead. I have been trying to identify what I have been feeling.  I knew envy was the wrong word because I am happy my friends and family are still healthy and happy in their lives and careers. I just wish my path did not feel so far away from theirs. I feel lonely sometimes for some of the fun and camaraderie we felt all going in such a similar direction.

I met a woman at during my swim time at the exercise pool and she told me she has lived in the small town where the pool in located for the last 50 years. We discussed all the places I have lived and the people I have met. I made friends wherever I went and left them there when I moved on to my next location. She told me she wondered what that experience would be like and could not imagine what it would be like to adjust to so many places and people. We decided one situation was not better than the other, that they were each unique .That our personal experiences made us who we are today.

I still can’t help but feel some days like I wish this path was headed in a different direction. I did not take this path by choice. Lung cancer chose me. But it is still a path that has led me to experiences that I would not want to change and some that I would.  Anyone on the path of life would have to admit to that. So, maybe I am not so very different after all. I am sure that even though this path was not my choice, there is a reason for it. I hope I will have the time to discover that reason.