Member-only story
The Roads Not Taken
How different would my life have been if I’d turned left instead of right?
When I was in college, I learned about a study-abroad opportunity, an internship for a publisher of travel guides. They would send you to Europe or South America or somewhere else exciting for four months; you would live there, explore it, and write about it. There would be some training and supervision, but mostly you were on your own.
Learning. Living. Writing.
It sounded amazing. I wanted to do it so badly. I already had a passion for writing; and at that point in my life, I had never really traveled anywhere, and thought I had a passion to do so. (As opposed to now. I’m so over traveling now, I’m a horrible homebody. If I never had to leave the house again, it would be too soon.)
But…I never even filled out the application form.
Why not?
It’s a little embarrassing to admit it now, but, it was because of a man. My boyfriend was a sweet man, and he loved me so much. I’d made his life so much better, he told me all the time.
I knew, even before I got home on the day that I’d found out about the program, that he wouldn’t want me to go. I already felt the small, sad sense of dread of telling him about it.
