The Road

      Sometimes, life takes you to very much unexpected places. A year ago from today, I certainly wouldn't have guessed that I would be where I am today. Sometimes when we look towards the future, it is somewhat like a road. There are some stretches where we feel like we can see everything that's coming, and from quite a ways off. Once we actually hit that stretch of road, however, it may be much rougher than we thought--filled with potholes, maybe even stinky roadkill. It can be somewhat disheartening to realize just how much we don't know about the road ahead.

      At other times, it is almost as if there is a blizzard, thick fog, and it's the dead of night and your headlights just went out. You have no idea what is up ahead, or even how you can keep on going. For some of us, this could be a time when a loved one is lost, or when a natural disaster strikes. This happened to my parents years ago--their first son (namely my oldest brother) died when he was about a month old, due to complications of my mother becoming seriously ill during her pregnancy. It very nearly ripped my family's world apart, and honestly I don't know how my parents got through it. Just from the stories they've told me about it, it was a very difficult and dark time for them both. But they managed to pull  together, stay strong, and they kept on trying to have a family. This is a most fortunate thing for me, since I wouldn't be here otherwise. 

      Yet at other times, like I am now experiencing, you can see that there is a bend coming up in the road. What lies beyond that bend, however, is really anyone's guess. It could be a fork in the road, a sheer cliff, or even a pack of rabid wildebeest. You really don't know, and the only way to find out is to just keep pressing forward. In just a few short weeks, I will be applying to a program at my university that is extremely competitive--and if I'm not accepted, I will have to completely reevaluate what I want to study in college. Which, further down the road, would ultimately change what I do for a living. There is no concrete way that I can peek into the future and see for sure if I will make it in to the program or not, as comforting as that would be. But what I can do, is keep doing my best to stay optimistic and not let life get me down. Life is certainly depressing enough to weigh you down if you focus on the negative aspects. The tough thing is that the negative things are the easy ones to notice--it's all too often the great and wonderful things in life that we take for granted.