Lately there has been a change in me. I am still discovering the full extent of this shift in my life and amongst my curiosity I am finding that this might be a monumental moment in my lifetime. As a matter of fact, I am certain it is because I feel I am growing into the person I am destined to be.
I am discovering that brewing inside of me there are so many ideas, words and visions that I have suppressed. As a result of this discovery I have begun to dare to release and express that which is brewing in my heart and soul. Too long have I emmited what is within me in a distorted manner as a result of the influence of my surroundings.
A poem from Robert Frost rings in my mind now from the days of my daring youth where with no remorse I always ran freely towards "The Road Not Taken". Challenging the world everytime I lifted my foot and proclaiming my freedom from what the world would define my next action to be. What happened to that struggling latino boy growing in the streets of Spanish Harlem, NYC yet finding beauty in any breath he choose to? Is he gone? I believe he has visited me many days, so does that mean he is close?
That boy is ME. That boy is my heart, my soul, my mind and my unique signature upon this cold and tainted world. All of us have that boy or that girl within us. It is just a matter of how influenced and conformed we have been by the surroundings and experiences in our lives. For too long I have let the ideas, dreams, aspirations and values which the world has drowned me in throughtout my life cause the very person I am to marinate in that which is not truely me, not that daring boy I once was.
The good news (which never seems good within these moments) is life has been boiling me. Boiling me with many struggles, trials and tribulations. The difference is I wont go right back and marinade where I am expected too or where the world might expect me to. No....that is the difference in me, that is the change.
I am running down "The Road Not taken" and I am not looking back. I am creating my own path and I am going to marinate in my own dreams, visions, ideas, aspirations and values. I am going to add those seasonings of education, experiences and inspiration from those who have and are running their own paths. My vision is only clear ahead now and even if I were to look back my sight is so altered that the once paved path I took would be nothing but an insignificant punitive blur to my eyes.
I am that boy again.....the boy who wasn't designed to follow a paved path but to make a new one. I am daring again.....Daring To Discover who I am.
Poem By Robert Frost (1874-1963):
"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 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.
