The Road Not Taken

My Facebook status the other day said Deanne Rodgers Tanksley "is just wondering......"

I do that a lot. Just sit and wonder. Wonder about what is going on at home while I'm working. Wondering about my one of my nephews and where he is headed. Wondering if I'll survive another busy season - especially as I'm sitting there staring at piles and piles of work.

This particular day the wondering was prompted by some wandering. I needed to take some information to a client and as it was a glorious 70+ degrees outside in January, I walked. I passed a bakery that recently closed up. I could see another around the corner that has been closed for a while. Several other businesses downtown are boarded up as well.

Several years ago I was looking at opening a bakery in downtown Natchez. For those that don't know it - I was enrolled in a culinary arts program before we moved. I was thinking about catering or something. Anyway, at the time I wasn't really pleased with where I was in the accounting industry and I was itching to try something new. I looked at a few options. Talked to some people about buying an existing location. Made a couple of other inquiries.

But I didn't do it. My circumstances at work changed, as did a few other things, so I stayed put.

But I do occasionally think about the "what ifs". If I had opened a bakery would I be closing the doors right now? Or would I be up to my elbows in King Cake orders this Mardi Gras season?

My eighth grade English teacher, Mrs. Charlene Barker, told me I should consider being a writer. What if I had listened and pursued that? Would I be on the New York Times bestseller list? Or would I have one lonely volume on a small town library shelf? As it is now I'm more of a book collector and reader. But I love to write and have a couple of books started and several short stories.

I pretty much stumbled into accounting. If fact, I guess I took a lazy way out. Accounting was actually very easy for me so I just stayed with it. I got swept away with the Big 8 firms interviewing on campus my senior year of college and just never looked back. This is my 22nd busy season.

But I still wonder about those other paths. I'm a very big believer that paths sometimes dead end, or come to a T and you have to chose one direction or the other. I also think you can sometime change paths just because you want to. Might not have to, just want to.

In some ways, I guess I dance over to and along those other roads. I've started this blog and I've had a few things published in e-magazines. I am trying to get some of my other "works" published and things are moving along on that front. I also cook on the side for some people here in town. I basically get the cost of the ingredients reimbursed, but I love to do it and you just never know where these things might lead. I might fix something for someone that ends up sparking a new venture.

I try to always be prepared for anything. For me, that is what makes life fun. Doing all these things on the side, ready should they ever take the spot front and center. Trying to do whatever is necessary to be in position and ready to jump on any opportunities that arise.

Because you never know. The road not taken might have been hidden, or unpaved, or simply under construction. Waiting to be complete before it presented itself.

Kind of makes you wonder.....