By ShellC 
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
How does he know?
The quote above is about taking the road others don’t take (although that’s open for discussion), but I’m not here to talk about that. Rather, I’d like to discuss the idea that our lives are made up of many divergences and we never really know what difference they make.
Both my grandmothers used to reflect on some of their crossroads. Nanna C (Dad’s mum) had made lots of these life-changing decisions. She married a soldier on leave from World War 2, had his baby, lost her, then after the war she gave him four more children and moved to the other side of the world with him. When they had troubles, she chose to stay. She used to say that you had to make your decisions and then follow them through. And never look back.
I think Nanna K, my maternal grandmother, looked back a bit more and maybe wondered a bit more about what might have been. Marrying young and having a child meant curtailing competitive swimming, and giving up a lot of independence. And maybe some of the things that happened – like her divorce – she didn’t get a choice in, but she still made associated choices, like choosing to be a strong and independent single mother, and choosing to live when things seemed too hard. But when I went on my big “overseas experience”, she expressed – along with how proud she was of me – her regret that she hadn’t done the same.
For myself, I suspect I have a bit of both tendencies. I might make the decisions, but I have a tendency to occasionally stop and look wistfully across at the path I didn’t take. Except how can I know what that would have been because the paths have diverged so far, I will never be able to see?
My choices
Some decisions I made knowingly. The movie Dead Poets Society came out when I was in Year 11. I loved it, I still do, and I told my parents they had to see it. Mum came home, burst into tears, and blurted, “You can study English Literature next year if you want to.” At the time, I was agonising over my subject choices for the following year. My English teacher had suggested I might be a good candidate for literature (in those days I would still have had to do the general English subject as well) and I was also loving history. But I was good at maths and science as well and those subjects would give me the most options when I was looking at university courses. Ultimately, I decided (it was always my decision – my parents weren’t making me do anything) to study Maths A, Maths B, Physics, Chemistry and English. Then a year later I reasoned that if I went to uni and studied the literature and history that I loved for three years, I would then have to do a job that I really wouldn’t like for the rest of my life in order to survive. Whereas, I quite liked maths and pursuing engineering would mean I did something I quite liked for the rest of my life. That’s the option I went with.
Other decisions I made unwittingly. Choosing to go to a selective school in Year 9 was intentional, but it wasn’t until I got there that I discovered – having been one of the “ones to watch” for drama at my previous school – I couldn’t even get into the chorus of the school musicals. Apparently, everything was elite there. And then, at 30, one of my older male colleagues said, “If I had my time over, I wouldn’t get married so early – I’d do like you are doing and travel first.” I thought about that. Before I did my big OE, there had been a few guys who – maybe – something might have been about to happen with. By the time I got home they were all in the relationships that would see them through the rest of their lives (or at least until now so far as I know).
“The thing is,” I replied, “nobody told me that was the choice I was making”. At the time, I was in the midst of deciding whether I should try to have a child on my own, because women don’t get an unlimited time to find their life partner before having children, and based on my family history my time was probably up. I was reluctantly letting go of a future that included my own children. “If I’d known I was choosing between travel and having kids, I’m not sure I would have made the same decision.”
Sometimes I didn’t really make a decision but chose the path of least resistance. Going back to the whole maths/science versus history/literature: I was also really interested in journalism. Really interested in journalism. When I was applying to university, the number one journalism course required a folio as part of the application. I didn’t prepare a folio because I was so busy getting good grades in all my subjects. And I did – with my final score and subjects I could have got into any course in the state, as long as it didn’t require a folio or other additional work. This meant journalism was not on the cards for me. Similarly (though not identical), when I was in my final year of a double degree course in (computer) science and (electrical) engineering, I applied to graduate jobs in information technology as well as electrical engineering. I got the IT job first, took that and stopped applying. The decision that would determine the trajectory of the rest of my life, and I let the hiring companies make it for me.
And not all of the decisions were final. I do have a child (who is nearly an adult) with a supportive partner now. While I have decades of experience in IT, a lot of that time was as a business analyst and a manager rather than a developer. I went back to study (there’s more of a story there but I’ll tell it another time) and am now a clinical psychologist as well. It’s not like I never changed course.
Getting around to it
Writing, literature, history, theatre: they were all still there, on the back burner to be explored ‘one day’. Right before I turned 50, a number of different events prompted me to reflect that my ‘bucket list’ of places I wanted to visit was now longer than the rest of my life. That got me thinking about all the other things I had been going to get to one day. It was time to start doing something about that. I swear my intention was to be a lot more methodical and reasoned, but what with one thing and another (I guess I still have a tendency to let the path of least resistance guide me) I am now about halfway through a Master of Arts in Writing and Literature, and I am about to perform in my second amateur theatre production this year, after a hiatus of about 40 years. After years of looking longingly across wondering what would have happened if I had taken this path or the other, I am getting some insight into that. While I’m loving the experience, it’s also showing me the positives of the path I did take.
Here are some of the things I love about my life path
I don’t have to make it pay
I’m loving learning about writing and literature. I’m learning how to write and I’m spending hours having these deep philosophical discussions about language and politics and values. But I don’t have to make it pay. One subject exposed us to all the aspects of publishing and I got to explore the ideas of self-publishing vs traditional publishing, and also marketing considerations, digital publishing: so much more. Through the course of that subject, I realised I don’t need to constrain myself to one genre or pathway. In a few weeks I’ll be releasing a manual on how to throw themed birthday parties and in the meantime I’m canvassing publishers about a children’s book I have written (although I will probably self-publish that as well). Next year I hope to release a book of funny travel stories: the good, the bad and the ugly. If they all fizzle: no harm no foul. If I’d started a career in writing straight out of education, I would have been constantly struggling to make ends meet and wouldn’t have the freedom I have now.
Travel
Well, yes, this is also about the money – I’ve been so many places which would not have been possible on a writer’s or actor’s income – but there are other parts to that. My work sent me all around Australia installing cheque processing systems once upon a time. I travelled to Sydney, Seoul and Taipei to give a course in business architecture software and I’ve been a lot more remote places that I probably shouldn’t name. Then of course there’s the time. I did actually start at an evening acting school after I started work, but had to leave because I was starting to travel a lot for work and couldn’t meet the commitments. And now I’m back on the stage and haven’t been able to go away for more than a couple of days at a time. There are rehearsals every weekend and it’s making me appreciate the flexibility of being able to travel for months at a time when I feel like it. After this next production I’m going to take a few months to breathe – and travel – before looking for the next opportunity if I do decide to keep going.
Life experience
Looking back over the topics I’ve written about so far – Australian history, parenthood, travel all around the world, media integrity, civic literacy, children, trauma, life stories and so much more – I reflect on how much narrower they would be if I hadn’t lived the life I had.
I recently performed in The Sweet Delilah Swim Club, a play about five friends who met in college and still catch up every year for the rest of their lives. It’s not that I need to have lived the same life as my character, but the one I have lived means I understand what it is to invest your whole identity into something, only to discover its fragility, and to have to address the curveballs the world throws at you.
The people I have met along the way – some who travel large tracts of life’s journey with me, and others who barely register – have all contributed to who I am and I believe I am richer and more rounded for these interactions.
I used to take myself very seriously, and I still have that tendency, but I know I can roll with the punches and I am much more capable of keeping perspective now.
All this is to say:
After years of wondering “What if?” I am getting a teensy tiny glimpse of the answer, and it has brought a new appreciation of the path I did take, through an endless series of crossroads.