The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
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 for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
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.
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.
***
I love this poem. I'm not sure if I have taken a less traveled road, but in looking back at my life - at the roads I have chosen - I know I would not be where I am today if I had not been where I was - if I had not followed wrong road after wrong road. If life's journey is through a labyrinth, it's as though I had a map at the beginning, knew just where I wanted to head and thought I knew exactly to where it would lead. But at the moment when I turned down the job at US News and World Report, I dropped the map and became utterly disoriented, having no idea where I was or where I was headed. In order to write about that time, I have to remind myself that all that blind and tortured wandering led me to a far different place than I'd imagined, but probably also a far better one.
But then, at that cross-roads where I chose my path, I could not have known the way ahead for many years would be governed by the tyranny of a mind that spoke a primary language of disappointment, hopelessness, fear, ugliness and regret. Breaking away from that government was a journey in itself. And a story for another day.
To be clear, this was not X's fault. He was and remains a good. if a bit odd, man. I do not blame him for anything that I suffered at that time. He did not cause it. Another woman in my situation might have been perfectly happy. He could not have known that I was not meant to be with him and that despite what we both initially felt, the relationship was a mistake.
Of course, even the word "mistake" is subjective. Some lessons are incredibly difficult to learn... incredibly painful. No, I wasn't supposed to be with him, but if I hadn't been, I would be a different person today. When I think about this it always seems to me that there was only ever one path I could have taken - the other roads are illusions. They were never really choices at all.
I am grateful for the hard lessons. If I not had those experiences, I might still be wandering about fantasizing that depression is somehow "noble" or a window to enlightenment. I might still be romanticizing the idea of suicide, which is the only way to fail at life; after all, if you wake up in the morning, there is still something for you to do... a reason for your life.
But I digress.
In part one of this post, I had skipped ahead almost to the wedding. But I think I should backtrack to how I got engaged and the warning signs I should have recognized.
When young people are in the first throws of infatuation, it’s hard to make them see the pitfalls and cliff edges ahead. And often those hazards are masked by the “wooing period” of a relationship. The wooing period is when a guy who is normally an ambitious workaholic takes the weekend off to stroll around a lake holding hands, and a woman who has no interest at all in sports happily spends a sunny Sunday afternoon parked on the couch watching the game. It’s when we are on our best behavior and no little personality foible can annoy us. When we refrain from nagging or farting or showing unease about anything. When we are who we think others want us to be… for the most part.
Unfortunately, the wooing period is unsustainable, lasting (in my experience) anywhere from a few minutes of the first date to a few months. One must recognize this truth if one is to keep from making terribly false assumptions about the object of our affection. Who we meet in the beginning is not necessarily who we will end up with over time. I have come to the conclusion for myself that it is necessary to know someone two years before one can be sure one is clear of the wooing period and is seeing the true person without rose colored glasses. This, of course, varies from couple to couple. But what I can say with absolute confidence is that one should know someone for longer than a month before one makes any life-changing decisions.
My first date with X was not particularly noteworthy – nothing especially romantic or exciting. Just your typical happy hour get-together at a local town bar. The only thing I particularly remember was that towards the end of the evening, an acquaintance from high school – a guy who was a few years ahead of me – sat down at the bar next to us and joined our conversation as though we were not obviously on a date. Eventually and obliviously, the guy went so far as to ask me out. I replied without hesitation or thought, “I’m a lesbian.” To which he replied, “Can I watch?” That seemed like a good time to pay the bill and leave. It was on the walk back to our cars that I suddenly realized the man beside me did not know that I am not a lesbian and I awkwardly had to try to explain my “speak first, think later” self.
Despite that slight hiccup, our dates became more frequent. Soon, I was invited to his apartment for the first time. I cannot state emphatically enough: infatuation is blinding. I hardly noticed that he had shoved clothing and newspapers under the couch cushions in an attempt to provide me a place to sit. The situation was similar in his room – his mattress was directly on the floor and covered in clothing, papers, CDs and other miscellaneous items. The kitchen counter was also difficult to find underneath the mail and scraps of previous meals.
I’m not a particularly clean and tidy person, though I generally keep things in a state where I wouldn’t be embarrassed to have people drop by unexpectedly. I was rather unimpressed with the state of his home, but as I said, this was the wooing period during which one tends to overlook such small details as the way a person keeps house. What was it to me if he didn’t care about his living space?
If you think a person’s housekeeping habits (whether they are neater or messier than yours) will not impact the long-term happiness of your relationship, think again. I strongly recommend anyone considering a commitment ensure housekeeping is an area of compatibility. Either you both care and make an effort or neither person cares and you live happy as pigs in… a sty. In any case, while there is always some room for compromise, this is an area of a relationship that really can and must be addressed in the earliest days. If you walk into someone’s place and the sight of it makes you quiver with fear (either because they show symptoms of OCD or they strike you as the kind who, fifty years hence, might be found dead in their home buried under a six foot wall of old newspapers and garbage), you may want to reconsider the next date. It will be important in the course of a relationship.
But I was twenty-two and that was a lesson I had not yet learned.
Another signal that might have raised an eyebrow or two among the objective observers was when, one night, after about two weeks of dating, X found a gray hair on my head. I was, of course, mortified. But as he plucked it out he said something rather unexpected.
“I think we should dye our hair gray now so we can start getting used to how we will look when we are old.”
They say, “You’re as old as you think you are.” With hindsight, I can perfectly well recognize that this was an indication of how old X thought he was – and that’s about 84 years. I didn’t put together all the pieces at the time – the gray hair comment, the fact that almost all of his friends were at least twenty-five years older than he was and that his closest familial relationship was with his grandparents.
As, at the time, my emotional age was about thirteen, all I heard was, “when we are old.” And my happy heart spun images of a wedding, followed by a long life being loved by this man. Never again having to worry whether I’d end up alone; having the security I’d always tried to squeeze (to the point of suffocation) out of every boyfriend I’d ever dated. It never occurred to me that one’s twenties could be a time of fun and freedom and that would still leave many, many years for a committed relationship. I was ready for the fairytale “happily ever after,” and this guy was offering it.
Days later, with a sort of “understanding” that this was “forever” between us, I left for the dream job in Washington. No longer enthusiastic about my great chance to make my way in the world, all I was thinking about was the love I was leaving behind. We had talked about whether he would ever move to D.C., as I had not really enjoyed my childhood in my hometown and was not enthusiastic about living there permanently. But he said he had a good job (more than I had) and wanted to be in close proximity to his grandparents for as long as they were around. After which, though, he would consider moving anywhere. Made sense to me.
When I turned down the full-time gig with the magazine, I headed back home. I had met X in early June, moved to DC in late June and was back in early August, certain I was sure what I wanted for the rest of my life.
X picked me up from the train station upon my return and presented me with a beautiful bracelet. I was enchanted! A gift! And it wasn’t even my birthday! This was something that had never happened to me before… this was romance… this was love!
I pause here to comment that another example of “wooing period” behavior is unexpected gifts. If you are given a gift for no reason in the first four months of a relationship, it is a lovely gesture, but it does not necessarily signify that you are seeing a true romantic who will make every day a special occasion by turning up with a token of affection. Date for awhile. See if those gifts keep coming a year or two later.
But again, I didn’t know this at the time. As it turned out, I think that was the first and last unexpected gift I was given. However, just a week or so later, I was to receive another piece of jewelry. The one that almost every girl dreams about from the time she can make a veil out of toilet paper.
X had to pick up a package at the post office. He was nervous and excited, which made me nervous and excited. We were there when the doors opened at 9:00 a.m. The day was all blue sky and puffy, white clouds. I stayed in the car while he collected what he claimed were school supplies. He emerged with a mischievous grin and refused to let me see what he had picked up, but I had a pretty good idea.
We went to a local diner for breakfast and I ordered pancakes, as usual. We giggled a lot, both us aware of the smoke coming from his pocket where the package was burning a hole with its desire to be revealed. Midway through our meal, we overheard a conversation two older gentlemen at the neighboring table were having, describing how they had met their wives. They reminisced with loving anecdotes about the days they had proposed and the lives they had led together. X and I looked at each other and smiled that “young love” gooey smile.
At last he cleared his throat and said to me, “Will you do me a favor?” Feeling the moment was upon me, I was breathless and nodded. “Will you be my wife?” he finished, as he pulled the ring box out from his pocket.
This wasn’t exactly how I had imagined a proposal – over pancakes and bacon, trying to avoid the sticky syrup on the table. But, nonetheless, I said “yes.” The ring was lovely, vintage 1940s, white gold filigree with a small, but pretty diamond. I slipped it on my finger and it twirled around like I’d just won the ring toss at a carnival. “It’s a little big,” I commented, giggling.
“I asked what size I should get,” he said, embarrassed. “I was told it should match your shoe size. You’re a 7 ½.”
I giggled some more, “Yes, well, I guess I was meant to have smaller feet or larger fingers.”
What frustrated him the most was that the ring had initially been a size 5, which is what I wear, but he’d had it made larger because of my shoes. Now he would have to resize it down to its original size. Ah well. We didn’t dwell on it long.
I assumed he had planned the day around this event. We were having perfect summer weather and as a teacher, he didn’t have to work, so the world was our oyster – the beach? New York
After breakfast we went for a walk along the town’s linear trail. This is a small and silly pet peeve of mine – linear trails. I like circles. I like following a trail that leads me back to the beginning so I don’t have to pick a spot and double back on myself. The park always annoyed me. But, well, that’s my own little neurosis so not fair to blame anyone for that. There we were walking along the trail and the first person we come across is one of my former high school teachers. My very least favorite teacher. The teacher who made me hate science with a passion and abandon all fantasies of becoming a marine biologist or a primatologist. Masking my feelings, we smiled happily as we approached her and I showed off my ring, thinking how very odd it was that she should be the first person to know.
Shortly afterwards, we returned to his apartment and I waited for what I was sure would be the next part of my surprise. The surprise, it would seem, was on me… X took a nap.
Napping would become a very sore spot with me. I had stopped napping somewhere around six months old and had never looked back. There was too much to do with every day to waste it sleeping. But for X, naps were a daily ritual. A necessity. They took precedence over what others might consider important activities (like picking your wife up from the police station after a car accident). Ever after, I have considered napping to be a relationship deal-breaker.
So there I was, 11:00 a.m., on a bright, sunny August morning, standing by myself on the back deck of X’s apartment overlooking a cemetery, staring at the ring dangling from my finger and wondering, “What did I just do?”
The thought was there… I know it was. There was an opportunity to change my mind. The problem was a twenty-two year old (or, to be fair, this twenty-two year old) looked at the situation as an isolated incident. It was the disappointment of this particular moment. It was enough to make me question what I was doing, but it didn’t seem like a big enough problem to make me second-guess my decision to spend the rest of my life with this person. The “rest of my life” was an abstract and unimaginable concept. I had a ring and a wedding right before me. These I understood. These excited me. In my naivety, I didn’t understand that wedding and marriage are two very different things. And that of the two, “marriage” was significantly more important than wedding. A wedding lasts a day. A marriage, well…
I did not look ahead and consider that if this is how I felt on the day of the proposal, how would I feel on other special occasions? I did not stop to think whether I would be similarly disappointed on every anniversary, Valentine’s Day, birthday, Christmas, etc. I did not think of the future at all. I just thought that on this particular occasion, I was sad and I didn’t think I ought to be.
I stormed into X’s bedroom and kicked his feet. Grumpy at the abrupt awakening, he grumbled at me, wondering what was wrong. I whined something about having thought he might have made some small effort to make the day special. Sleepily he rubbed his eyes and asked what I wanted to do. But the wind was out of my sails. I didn’t want to have to tell him what I wanted to do. I wanted him to have made the effort to think of something.
Amazing how clear the warning signs are in retrospect. It seems so self-evident that the indications of all that would make me unhappy were right there in the first six weeks of our relationship. I just didn’t see any of it. I was living in the present. I was carried away by the fairytale of “love at first sight” and the romance of giving up what I thought I wanted for myself to be with the man I loved. I didn’t know that often the little things that bother you at first are actually likely to get worse as a relationship develops. But someone who graduated with a double major in government and history should have known: the past is prologue.
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