The Journey

I've just been reading my beautiful friends post over at www.zactom.blogspot.com

It got me thinking a lot about the subtle choices that curve our paths and shape our lives. And also about the bumps and dips that we don't see coming that can throw us into a tail spin or send us sky high. As Welshy likes to say "Life is not a straight line."

My mother in law was a card giver. A letter writer, the gifter of books and at every opportunity, the sender of a greeting card. I have kept most of the cards she gave me. Everything from "I won't say congratulations because L is the one who should be congratulated on being engaged to you, but I will say best wishes" to birthday cards written in her broad and curly writing-always in black, felt tip pen.
In February 2009, I went to Europe for a month. I needed a break between full time work and embarking on full time study. As per usual, I got a card in the mail a few days before I left. "Bon Voyage!" It declared in black felt tip. "All the best on your holiday and when you come home, you will start a brand new journey and you have my love and best wishes for that too." She was, of course, referring to me returning to study. I think.
So i went to Europe, traipsed about, had a fantastic time if truth be told. I got back to Melbourne and had 6 days of jet lag and classes. On Sunday night, the phone rang, my mother in law was dead. She'd suicided. And a new journey had indeed started. But a completely different one to the one i had envisioned.

Fast forward to my last class of that course. Having painted my way through grief and sketched a new life outside of my marriage, I was single, at the end of a journey And SO ready for a new adventure. I assumed that I'd get a fabulous job, save the world, bite off more than I could chew. The next day I put on a pretty dress and went to a friends party. I told everyone how i had finished school, how crazy the last two years had been. I shared a beer with my ex husband and danced to this stupid song that seems to follow me around like a puppy. And then I met this gorgeous Welsh guy with bad manners and unusual eyes. I gave him my phone number and woke up the following day wondering if my qualification would be recognised in the UK. 6 months later I sat in his parents farm house in the middle of rural Wales and ate cake. Pregnant with their grandchild. Talking about sheep.

Once again, the adventure I was gearing up to, morphed into a surprise, life changing, beautiful, scary journey of epic proportions.

We have this one tiny life. A limited amount of forks to confuse us. A line of a certain length to lead us through the thick and the thin of it. We might not be able to choose our own adventures, but I am so glad that mine chose me.