Two Roads Diverged in a Wood, and I...

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference. 

I first read "The Road Not Taken" during one of my most dreaded middle school classes -English. Ironic, due to the fact that I have since become an English teacher. I guess I hated all of the repetition and memorization required during those years so I would tune the teacher out completely and get lost inside the pages of my literature book. Some days there was an adventure, other days it was a sad memoir, but the day I found the poetry section a new love blossomed. I had so many questions and earned for discussion but my classmates didn’t understand and my teacher did not have the time.

You could trace my interest in teaching back to that moment. I despised my English teacher that year and felt she had no clue how to inspire a group of twelve-year-olds, let alone keep us interested in her monotonous worksheets. It was then I decided Robert Frost was going to be my teacher that year. A particular poem stood out to me, defined me. It still does. It may sound cliché given the poem’s popularity but the words invoked such strong feelings in me as an adolescent that I have turned to the poem for comfort and reassurance in times of uncertainty. 

Life’s has thrown me a little more than my fair share of curve balls but it has taught me that I become better, stronger, and more aware with every new pitch.

Thanks, Mr. Frost

 

The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.