You Can Run, But You Can't Hide...

So the big news is, drum roll please, I'm turning 40. Yep, that's right, FOUR ZERO. I can't say I'm particularly thrilled at the prospect, but it is what it is.

I know, I know, a lot of you have already hit this milestone and gracefully moved on; I just need to figure out the "graceful" part. (Half done, the little voice inside my head keeps moaning...HAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLFF DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE!) I just have such a longing to be more and do more, enjoy more, love more, and LIVE MORE; and being "half done" makes you stop for a minute and take a good long hard look at yourself, where you're headed, and what you did with the first half. I guess I just need to whisper back to the little voice "HALF LEEEEEEEEEEEEFFFFFFFFT" and move forward.

As I mourn, er celebrate, part of my favorite poem, the oft' quoted and perpetually misunderstood "The Road Not Taken" (by Robert Frost) keeps running through my mind. Frost spends the first couple of stanzas talking about choosing which road to take, the part everyone usually focuses on, and then he says this:

Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them [the two roads] really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept 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.

The poem is about making choices. The traveler chooses between two equally attractive options, moving forward with one and understanding that he will, subsequently, never explore the other. But the final message is what I find so interesting. The traveler realizes as he is making the choice that even though he faces equal options, time and experience will eventually make whatever he chooses significant, and that in hindsight his chosen road will become the one "less traveled." It becomes significant because he chooses it, and, therefore, it DOES make all the difference. It becomes part of him, part of his experience, his "road less traveled."

So, as I'm half baked (pun intended), I'm looking back on my road--all of the paths I could have taken and didn't, some of the paths I took but wish I hadn't, and all of the roads I'm glad I've chosen. I'm so grateful for the wonderful companions I've been blessed to travel with and all of the great experiences the road has surprised me with. It sure has been an interesting walk through the forest so far; if I make it the next 40 years of this journey, it will be even more interesting to compare my road at that point to the one I'm on today. Which paths will be my "roads less traveled?" Which of the choices I make today will become significant to my journey over the next half of my life?

If anyone wants to give me a birthday present, a crystal ball would be very much appreciated (only one that really works, though, please)...