The Road Not Taken

I have an interesting job.  I have found myself working with the teachers who I have faced across the table at parent teacher conferences.  When I go to work, the teachers know who I am.  This is not due to anything I have done, It is because I have six kids who have gone through the school system here.  It is interesting to see the other side of things now.  I haven’t ever taught other than substitute teaching.  I only started that five years ago.  I quit it all when I started to have kids.  I made the decision long ago to put my life into my kids, I quit working and stayed home for twenty one years.  I left my career behind and didn’t think much about it again until I started working again.

My life and the lives of those whom I work with are very different.  I don’t have years of teaching under my belt.  I haven’t established a reputation in the community.  I am not well known for my fantastic programs or productions.  I am just a mom who subs.  Spending time with those whom have been teaching for twenty plus years has been very interesting.  Some of them have actually retired and then returned back to the work place.  Their two (they all had two) kids have long grown and moved on.  They are well known and well respected, and that is their life.  There is nothing wrong with that.  I could have done that, I could have been there.  I have learned since working with them, they are just ordinary people who put their time in. I could have done what they are doing.   I chose a different path.  I put my time in elsewhere.  

The lives of these teachers have been very fulfilling, I have respect for them and the time and effort they put in with my kids.  I chose a different path and that is something I have never regretted.  I don’t regret staying home and taking care of my six kids.  I don’t regret having six kids, they are my life, my pride, my joy.  I would have it no other way.  I made my choice long, I made my bed so to speak and never looked back, and that has  made all the difference.  

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;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as far that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both the 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.

Robert Frost