Follow your chosen road
Where will your journey take you?
Years ago, my husband and I decided we needed to make some serious plans. We had already accomplished a few major goals: marriage, college for him, a solid job, comfortable housing, and even our first kid. But now what? What was our goal, our aim now? A standard “American” life with 2 or 3 kids, a house, a couple of cars, and vacation time we have to work toward every year and then need a second vacation to recover from afterwards? That didn’t sound like what we wanted from life, but what exactly did we want?
Joe grew up on a commercial fishing boat in Southeast Alaska and while he didn’t want to do that, exactly, he had fond memories of traveling off the beaten path with his parents and brother and wondered if we couldn’t do something similar. I knew I wanted to travel, but wasn’t sure of the best way to do that with kids in tow. After a lot of talking, we came up with the idea of traveling via sailboat.
Ironically, we decided on our boat’s name long before we ever found the boat. Back in the 1980s, a band named Mr. Mister released a song called “Kyrie.” For some reason, we were listening to the song and one of us got the idea to look up the lyrics. The whole song spoke to us, but one line really leapt out at me— “Would I have followed down my chosen road, or only wished what I could be?”
That is my question for you, dear reader. What is your chosen road of life? Are you following it? Our roads often have twists and turns we can’t see beyond. Sometimes there are potholes or roadblocks, and sometimes, the road runs straight and true for miles and miles.
My goal with this Substack is to share a bit each week about my chosen road—both past travels and where I think the map might be taking me next. I hope to also share about others’ roads of life as I read about them. I hope you join me on this journey and perhaps allow it to inspire you to find your chosen road!