MY OWN ROAD

I have a very liberal-minded, outspoken friend who lives in an extremely conservative community in east Texas.  She has to bite her tongue a lot.  One day, when she was cutting across one of their fields with her  young granddaughter, she asked the little girl to "Come over here Sweetheart.  It will be much easier to walk if we follow the road that Grandpa made with his tractor."  "No!", the child replied. "I want to go this way. I want to make my own road!" Needless to say, my friend was so very proud of this little rebel-in-the-making, she came straight home and posted about it on facebook!  It got me to thinkin'.

Miss Becky, between her two better-behaved sisters.

I guess I was a lot like that little girl growing up.  Hard-headed, my parents called it.  My life would have been sooooo much smoother, if only I could have kept my mouth shut.  If only I had never questioned or disagreed.  If only I had always done as I was told, without insisting that there be a good and logical reason behind it, instead of the usual "Because I said so, that's why!"

This is actually my high school graduation, not college.  There aren't any pics of my college graduation. I headed off to get married as soon as classes let out, and left for Indonesia the next day.  I suggested they just mail the diploma to my folks!

Things would have been so much easier if only I had used that Home Economics degree to find a nice, cooperative husband who would have brought me straight back to Dallas, so that I could follow the path they had laid out for me, being the devoted daughter and mother who never strayed from their sides, instead of falling for a guy who took me gadding about all over the world, flitting from one godforsaken place to another.

Easier?  Smoother?  Most likely.  But could it possibly have been any more wonderful? I think not. Nope, sometimes, a girl's just gotta make her own road.