Convergence

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked 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.

Yesterday the myriad circles of my life’s past came together and met for the first time. Old friends greeting one another, perfectly fitting together as if there had been some long-ago and half-forgotten plan that just now was remembered. The beauty and strength of that moment was palpable. Tears told the story of completion, of a Rightness so vivid and visceral that I knew in that moment all my long-asked half-answered questions about Why I Am Here.

There are no longer any regrets. No longing for roads not taken. All my long-ago roads have come back to me, and from here I can see how right it was that I not take them. How right it was to take the less traveled-by roads.

This morning a not-taken road emerged unexpectedly. I made a choice over 20 years ago to walk away from something, someone. And I have wondered ever since if that had been the right choice. It felt incomplete. 20 years ago I glimpsed a possible future. What I saw then scared me. Today I received completion. In a Facebook photo I saw the road that sprang from that moment. And the road had become exactly as I pictured it more than 20 years ago, only more so. How often do we get to see that our fears in a given moment really do come to pass?

Releasing the energy held in regret of my 20 years ago choice has infused me, enlivened me. I am now even more present to the life and love I am living. There is more of me to love and to be loved. It is as if a piece of me has returned, welcomed home.

I will never again regret not-taken roads. Those roads can come back if we let them, if they are Right. I will likely regret individual actions, words said in anger or fear, or words unspoken, actions to learn, grow and evolve from. But never again will I regret choices not lived. I have found the magic within that lets me voyage within my unlived choices and give life to them now, as I choose. Today I feel so full, so firm in my foundation of my convergence of myriad circles, that from here I only see one beautiful rainbow stretching into the sunset. One arc across which I will walk, hand in hand, with my beloved. One inexorable fountain from which springs all that I have ever been, am, and will be.