Local collector

You have no idea how many started posts I have in my queue waited to be posted... a lot. For a time I needed to stay inside myself. The only person I can work on is myself but I still hope I can inspire others with my experiences. Yes, it may be true that each of us have a distorted image of ourselves- we think our lives are more interesting than they really are. Everyone has an opinion and that's what makes this world so great- that we all have our agency to think, feel and act how we want to. But that's what I am doing now, writing because I would rather act than be acted upon. I feel what I share may not be important 100% of the time, but 5% is good enough for me. And really, why do some of us keep personal journals? Sometimes it's not for anyone else to see. Sometimes we just need to write.

The sound of crunching rocks beneath my Dad's feet has been a sound I've come to recognize since I was little. Every morning without fail, my Father would get out of bed at an awful hour of the morning to deliver newspapers. His footsteps would sound as he walked across the rocks... A handful of times I thought it would be fun to go to work with him... you can imagine how disappointed I was at my discovery that a paper-route wasn't fun. More than that disappointment, that was when I started to discover just how much my Father sacrificed for our family- for me. To this day his lack of sleep all of those years has stolen valuable pieces of him which he cannot get back. It's a reminder to me every time he forgets something or has trouble putting a simple sentence together. My Father is a genius. I can only imagine his frustration with himself now in his older years. But to me, he will always be my hero.

I was recently reminded of his sacrifice by the sound of crunching rocks underneath our feet together. It was our last walk together and coincidentally, it was the last few minutes of our walk on our way home. I never feel like Phoenix is my home anymore, but my home is where my family is. That is where I feel like myself- that is where I feel like a whole person more than ever. And as nice as it is to walk with my family beside me, they have all given me the strength to go on by myself.

I know I have posted this before, but it is one of my favorite pieces:

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 marked 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.

-Robert Frost

"The Road Not Taken"

Amy xoxo