The paths we take

Sometimes you stop to think about the path in life that you took. You wonder what your life would have been like if you had taken the path to the left and not the one you took to the right. I guess when you reach a certain age or stage in your life you stop to take stock of your life. Now's my time for reflection. Would I have been more self assured? Would I have had a happier marriage? What type of careeer would I have embarked upon? I'm not sure that accomplishes much except at times make you feel badly that you haven't been all that you would have liked to be. * Perhaps I should have gone into the army! Be all that you can be.. get it? My problem has been that I have allowed my heart to rule my life and not my intelligence. I stayed 23 years into a married that just about everyone said wouldn't last. And you know what? I was determined that I was going to prove them wrong. Unfortunely my marriage ended because my husband was stricken with cancer and died shortly there after. But at least they got no chance to say "I told you so". While in that marriage I I sometimes wondered what it would be like to NOT be married. To be able to go where I wanted to go or do what I wanted to without having to consider anyone else. Becareful what you wish for. I got my wish. But you know what? I handled it! He used to tell me that I couldn't make it without him. Truth was I was much stronger than he gave me credit for. I had to work 2 jobs and sometimes 3 to get by but I went where I wanted and did what I chose to for the first time in my life. You see when you get married at 16 you sometimes trade one father for another like figure. I learned that I was NOT stupid which was what he liked to call me. The night I was told he had cancer and was not expected to live more than 3 months, I was so numb with fright that I just walked for more than an hour around and around the medical center where he was confined. I thought what am I going to do? How will I survive? I had NEVER spent more than a couple of nights away from him. The first few months I was just numb. I did things automatically. I survived by instinct. Then gradually, I came out of my fog and little by little I knew that I COULD make it on my own..WOULD make it on my own. I figured out how to change sparkpugs on the lawnmower. I dealt with each new challenge on the basis that I HAD to handle it. I grew to enjoy my independance. I grew to find out all the things that I enjoyed. That people enjoyed my company and enjoyed me for who I was and not someone's wife or mother. And then one day.. I realized how much I LIKED me. I finally realized I did have things which made me special. I had arrived as a WHOLE person, not a person that had to have a man in my life to be happy. I should have taken the time then and figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Because little by little the years just flew past me. And once again I find myself wondering what I might have been if I had taken a different path then or what yet I want to become. This time I will approach it differently. I understand that I only get the One chance at life. And I need to once again take back the power from all the people I have given it to and only I will decide which path I take at the next fork in my life. And I will stop wondering "What if" and I will put out of my mind the past and go forward a step at a time toward being all that I can be. and... so.. it goes.........