Day #17

 I felt a new emotion today: fear.  It is the anxiety that comes from being on a specific path and then, suddenly, being on a different path. A path not of my choosing. A path without predetermined stops. 

For better part of the last 16 years, my main path has been the one called "parent". There are many attractions on the Parent path, almost all well known and well documented. Mine was really no different. Sure there were bound to be some unique challenges that I hadn't seen coming - the death of my father, quitting drinking, my motorcycle accident - but, on the whole, it was predictable, known: 

    Preschool, elementary, middle, high, college, career. 

And that's what life is - being predictable while at the same time being unpredictable. It's an interesting dichotomy. 

But now that path for me is gone - there will be no school, no graduation, no college - and I don't know what will happen next. The fear comes from the not knowing because for the longest time I did know. Or at least I thought I did. 

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