And that has made all the difference

The poetry of Robert Frost has always spoken loudly of the human will and spirit and there has never been a poem that has impacted me as The Road Not Taken. I can actually "remember" standing at the crossroads of my life; looking down each path that lay ahead of me and asked myself,  "am I making the RIGHT decision?". I could see how someone who had gone before me might take a certain path but then I wondered; if in my life, that the other path might be better suited for me. All in all, I reason it out that we can take either path in life; of the two paths that lie before us, we do not have to worry about "taking the wrong one".

Speaking from personal experience as a survivor of verbal and emotional abuse, I can say with confidence that the path of abuse cannot be foreseen and necessarily sidetracked any more easily than we can peer down either of the roads given to us to choose from in Frost's poem. We cannot foresee what lies ahead for us in a relationship using only our eyes. We need to employ our full senses of touch, smell, taste and hearing as well as intuition in all of our relationships. The strongest sense that we have is called common sense; and if it doesn't "feel right" it probably isn't. Fear always threatens to take over our decision making but we can all find the courage needed to take the road less travelled that will make ALL the difference in our lives.

The Road Not Taken read by Robert Frost; poet.

Listen to "The Road Not Taken"; choir and orchestra

Robert Frost (1874–1963).  Mountain Interval.  1920.

1. The Road Not Taken

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;	5
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,	10
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.	15
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.	20