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Two roads diverged in a wood when I was 16. Long before I ever read Robert Frost.
I was on my fourth high school and was sitting in a classroom taking an SAT test. They said it was required to graduate, so I couldn’t skip that day. I had to graduate.
Only, college was not something that we talked about in my family. I was the oldest of four children. The only male. I religiously attended the church of heavy metal and believed that recalcitrance was my charge in life. As a result, I was absolutely unmanageable. I pitied my parents.
I saw the two roads, but there was one other—no more than a path, really, covered in the brush between them. You had to look pretty hard to find it. Alcohol helped.
So I sat in a fluorescent classroom filled with pimply-faced kids my age who were all being shoved onto the well-traveled road. Into college. Away from home. Off to a life of responsibility with its safe routines predictable outcomes.
Things that bored my restless, recalcitrant spirit. I’d be damned if they were going to shove me into that meat grinder.
I liked to write. And watch movies. And score beer whenever I could. Back then it only took a couple to escape the overbearing world of robotic adults. Years later it took a lot more.
So for three hours that Saturday morning, I methodically filled in the bubble C on the answer sheet. Over. And over. Taking care to ensure that every blank speck within the bubble was neatly covered in lead, rotating my #2 pencil every few strokes to keep it sharp. My answer sheet was a work of art.
When the test ended, the other kids let out a collective laugh as though rejoicing that the thing they’d long feared was finally over. As the teacher walked the room gathering the sheets she wore a smile that said, “Welcome to the real world, kids. If you’re lucky, you’ll be fine.” I handed mine to her with no emotion.
College. Yeah, right. I left the school that day and drove to the beach where I spent the afternoon staring up at the clouds from the hood of my car.
Two roads diverged in a wood and I took a path that was hidden from view. Hacking my way through life for the next ten years until the path became a swamp, and I was chest-deep in the mud.
When I awoke, I was back at the edge of the wood where the two roads diverged years before. The lure to follow the well-worn road was strong. It was safe. Predictable. Everyone was there.
Then I took the road less traveled by.
And that has made all the difference.
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Originally published on Obsessed With Conformity. See more on Jim Mitchem’s site Quick Like Mongoose.
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