Roads

Yesterday, I went off for one of my drives that I usually save for warmer months. I didn't really have a plan in my mind but to explore for a few hours, but I did end up staying on familiar roads for the most part.
I drove through one intersection somewhere in Bucks County, and as I drove through, I looked off to the road on the right and saw that it extended for a quarter mile or so until a curve and the hills hid it from view. I kept on going straight, but I felt a longing to take that road, so much so that I wanted to turn around and check it out. Something about it seemed very interesting and compelling and new, but the thing about intersections is that in order to choose one way to go you have to forego the others. And the road you've taken leads to its own, new intersections, where you'll have to make the same choice again. All those other roads and intersections that you left behind become illusions.
Of course, driving gives me a great opportunity to ponder, so driving past that road I wanted to take lead me to think of the choices I've made over my life that have left me here in an old white house in New Jersey.
1) In high school, I applied to two colleges, getting into both. I got into a school called Oxford College, which was an entryway into Emory University. I didn't go because they didn't have an architecture program, and headed off to the University of Florida.
2) After a first year at college that I consider disastrous on several fronts, I had to think of another direction for my life to take, as being an architect wasn't in the cards. I chose to go for an English degree, with the idea of becoming a teacher so that I could have a career as I pursued writing. (If I could go back, I'd slap myself.)
3) In the summer of 95, I worked as a camp counselor at a camp in north Georgia, teaching tennis and making sure 7-8 year olds didn't hurt themselves or each other. I learned rather quickly that I'd rather not become a teacher, as it would involve having to deal with 20 to 30 things at once, and I'm not any good at that. While I finished off my degree, I was essentially directionless after that.
4) After graduating, I had a choice of continuing the path I had chosen or going on a completely different one. I went back to school, but this time with specific goals in mind, which I did eventually meet.
5) In 1999, I gave myself two options. My sis lived in Knoxville, TN., and my parents had just recently moved to Princeton, NJ. So, since I wanted family somewhere close, I would look in those two places for work. I stayed in K-ville for a few weeks while my sister and bro-in-law where in Europe and diligently looked for work. One interview that didn't lead anywhere. I headed on up to NJ, where on my first day there, my dad gave me a copy of the classifieds and said "Look for work."
I found a job here first, but who knows how different my life would have been if I had stuck it out in Tennessee. I love it there.
I guess I could go on and on, but as I said, you think only in illusions if you dwell on where you could have gone by deciding differently (I'm aware of my tendency to this). It stops up from living in the now. Now is where it's at!