Crossroads

In celebration of ten years of blogging here at LTG, each week for the next 5251 50 49 48 47 46  45 44 43 42 weeks I will delve deep into the sewer archives of past posts to bring you a tidbit of blog history.  I had originally planned to call this series “The best of LTG”, but damn, there just wasn’t much “best” to be found.  And mediocre is too hard to spell.)

KaraLynee, her parents, and my kids circa 1982.  If I knew then what I know now would I have made a different choice?

KaraLynne, her parents, and my kids circa 1982. If I knew then what I know now would I have made a different choice?

Five years ago I wrote about a seemingly innocuous decision that wound up completely changing my life in a post called “The road not taken”.

Over the course of a lifetime we obviously make many life-altering decisions. Some good, some not. I chose not to kill myself at 19.  I decided to keep my daughter rather than let her be adopted.  I made choices to get married and divorced.  And if I hadn’t decided to come to Korea ten years ago you would have been spared the pain of reading this blog.

But those are the big decisions, and you know they are going to change your life at the time you make them.  It’s those little ones, things that don’t even seem like making a meaningful choice that fascinate me.  I remember witnessing a fatal car crash back when I was around 12 years old.  And I thought at the time, if she had only left home one minute earlier or later she would not have been in this spot at this time.  What decision had she made that morning that caused her to leave home when she did and led to fatal consequences?

So, one long ago night I decided to leave my campsite and grab a beer in town.  And nothing after that was ever the same.

Update:  Heh, right after completing this post I came across this.  I took it as a sign.

Update II: for sojuhoncho.

4 thoughts on “Crossroads

  1. john, your posting got me thinking about the song “crossroad” by the allman brothers band. ” I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knee, down to the crossroad, fell down on my knee, asked the lord above for mercy, take me if you please. I went down to the crossroad, tried to flag a ride, down to the crossroad, tried to flag a ride, nobody seemed to know me, everybody passed me by”.

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