
The week before they'd predicted another Snowpocalypse and when I looked out the back window the next morning (I'd not noticed anything when I looked out the front window), I was able to detect several flakes of snow on the trash can lids. This Snowmageddon was more pronounced, but less than that predicted (to be fair, as with other 'sciences' there is as much art as science to their work). I'd been volunteering at RDU with the USO-NC and left there at around 10:00 PM to drive home through the most snow I've seen in over ten years. As I'd learned years before when spending winters in Great Lakes, Illinois and Ballston Spa, NY, taking it slow, staying off the brakes and making large radius turns can usually keep you going safely. Often the biggest challenge is avoiding those folks who think they are masters of the road in their SUVs (one who flew past me doing about 70), but thankfully I did arrive at home safely by 11:00PM (usually a 15 minute drive).
Life is like that, we do the best we can and trust that we will arrive safely at our expected destination, but sometimes we encounter someone or something that can detour us so that, at best, our destination changes. I've had multiple such detours, many not so pleasant, but some have been better than the expected destination. Part of my difficulty is my time 'inside' pounded into me a sense of inferiority that is incredibly difficult to overcome; I expect to fail because society has, for the most part, labeled me as such because of my record. Both of the 'forks' I have before me will challenge that sense of worthlessness as they involve endeavors that I've never done before and I'm sure there are those like the idiot in his SUV who go racing around with little regard for who they are possibly chasing off the road. Part of the challenge is keeping going despite such and believing in myself as so many others do.
Stay tuned.