Diverging in a Yellow Wood

These golden days of November remind me of my favorite poem:

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

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 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.

Despite a few inconveniences and some health problems, I’ve enjoyed my journey on the road that I took. Where I am now is so different from how I—as a child more than a half-century ago—envisioned what direction my life would take. I did wish then that I would grow up to have a horse and a houseful of cats and dogs. (Got ’em!) I never saw myself having kids, so I didn’t. I’ve always loved nature and now I own 500 acres filled with it, including the Union Hall farm where this picture was taken. I’ve been married for nearly 39 years to a man I only knew for 5 months before we married, and we live a house I coveted for 10 years before it came up for sale. We have no debts and few, if any, regrets.

Everything I really wanted, I now have. How many people can say that?