As you journey through life, choose your destinations well, but do not hurry there. You will arrive soon enough. Wander the back roads and forgotten paths, keeping your destination in your heart like the fixed point of a compass. Seek out new voices, strange sights, and ideas foreign to your own. Such things are riches for the soul. And, if upon arrival, you find that your destination is not exactly as you had dreamed, do not be disappointed. Think of all you would have missed but for the journey there, and know that the true worth of your travels lies not in where you come to be at the journey's end, but who you came to be along the way. 

~ Unknown

This beautiful quote from an “Unknown author” was brought to me via Sherry's blog. Visit her soon, great posts and the music is rockin’☺ I couldn’t help repeating and reflecting upon the quote here on Mind Sieve.

To quickly chart my various life journeys geographically, as well as accompanied and non-accompanied, (history reveals I’ve been more accompanied than non-accompanied in my life) the chart would be -

Infancy/childhood/teen years/college – CA, OK
Marriage/motherhood–OK, TX, AR, NY, Hong Kong, NY
Employment (my own)/divorce – TX, AR, Hong Kong, NY, CT
Remarriage/continuing employment – CT, NY, CT, WA
Retirement – WA

How quickly I can jot down those chunks of time, activity and geographic locations……I promise it feels as though those years went by almost as fast as I could mark them down.

Unlike the poet, I “landed” in my destinations fairly well, no compass, no plan, but always counting the days and in a hurry to get wherever I was going next. I didn't wander enough back roads or forgotten paths….I just sort of went along “with the program” forming around me.

I didn't seek out enough new voices, strange sights, and ideas that were different than my own. Although, I was fortunate enough to live in a foreign country and travel the world for several years – I still didn't seek enough or pull enough out of those experiences.

I was discontented from time to time with my geographical destiny, and with my marriage decision; never quite what I thought it should be and I was disappointed -THEN.

As my life is now – the “current destination,” I do find it not exactly as I would have imagined – it is, however, what I dreamed – I'm not disappointed!

In remarriage, employment, and now, my retirement, I find myself in the warmest, loveliest part of my life. Married to the man of my dreams, living in a small town in some ways similar to the small town that I spent so many childhood years in, in contact and harmony with God, my siblings, children, grandchildren and - in-laws – both past and present.

My future journey, perhaps using my compass a bit more now, is a plan to be more aware of those hidden paths, those lazy days, those ideas foreign to my own, those spiritual challenges that I am given; to aim for a continued harmonious relationship with God and all the earthly beings I am fortunate enough to meet and share this life with along the way. As I mentioned in an earlier post this week my plans are to expand, and to explore, while cherishing family and friends. I will select rather than slide too much, and will endeavor to summon the author's words of in remembering the true worth of your travel lies not in where you come to be at the journey's end, but who you (I) became along the way.