The Road Traveled.

My ideal travel guide would tell me that whatever road I take is the right one, no matter the direction. If I feel like going West, so be it! West is an excellent direction. Means of transportation are fairly insignificant if you're only using them as the tool to get from one place to the next. I have driven, biked, hitchhiked, and vespa'd, various parts of the world. All with the

goal that the journey is to be just as fun, if not more adventurous than my destination. So far I've had great success.

The best part about this blog is that I don't have to compare it to someone elses. There could be hundreds of blogs out there that chronicle someone's world travels and life achievements that dwarf mine; my minuscule scooterings over the swtichbacks of the Amalfi Coast could seem like a cake walk to climbing Kilaminjaro. However, I was reassured the other morning that this was my blog.
My life.
My road to travel. I should not make light of the opportunity nor my own chronicles of life.


My direction can change with the wind or like the tidelines of the ocean. And the footnotes of my travel guide say, in bold font, "do not wonder 'what if?'"! A life can be made up of "what ifs" and missed opportunities. Its troublesome to look back on at times. I find myself glimpsing into the rearview mirror of my past and shaking my head thinking, I should have done that, or what IF I had done this?

New goal: eliminate a few of the what if's in my life by participating in my life. No one can predict the future, nor can they foresee the outcome of the choices made. That is the beauty of the Road Traveled. You picked it. Congratulations! You have no idea where it leads or when it curves, dead ends or forks. But you know from previous experiences that roads are never straight and narrow, so you're semi-prepared with brakes.

There is an upside to the "what ifs" of life. I noticed quite a difference in mood when a positive outcome results from a "what if" moment. I asked myself a few:

What if I:
never moved to Charleston, SC
never picked up a camera
hated traveling
preferred coffee over tea
loved mountains more than the ocean.
never wrote in a journal.

Those six "what ifs" are just a few that would have changed the course of my life, not only geographically, but mentally and emotionally. I shudder to think if I some how chose a desk job over a photography job or chamomile over cappuccino . When I think about the what ifs that have become such staples in my lifestyle and have brought me to a place that I am content with, I am grateful to have something to show for the outcomes. It makes me smile. The intriguing part is a lot of them were choices. I chose to move to Charleston, to live by the beach, to write, to drink coffee. They were never forced, and each one just as unpredictable as the next. One choice spawns a new set of adventures, new people to meet, new roads to travel down. It is a semi-terrifying route, to watch it curve and bend from my vision. But equally as exhilarating.

Therefore, all in all, rather than focus and dwell on the road NOT traveled, I have displayed before me the road that I have, with no apologies or irrational fears about what the future will hold. It is there waiting.