A Stranger In My Home

Chapter 12

Author's Note: This chapter is dedicated to blondgrl for the song suggestion (video to the right). :)

Getting this chapter out was a pain, lemme tell you... I had a very different setup written, and it just felt off. I'm not saying this turned out all that better, but at least it's going to lead into what's coming next... I hope :)

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Julie was excited for night class. They were analyzing poetry, and their assignment for tonight had been to read The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. She had read the poem over and over again. One of the sentences made her reflect on her own life. She wanted to share her thoughts with the class, but it felt too private. She settled for a shallow interpretation when she was called upon.

"We want so much out of life, and there are so many choices. But we never know which is the right one, so we're left feeling confused and thinking 'what if'."

"Thank you, Julie," Logan said. "You actually raised an interesting point. The popular interpretation is that the poem is a tribute to individualism and non-conformity, that the speaker takes a road few others have taken. But critics have favored the ironic interpretation that the poem is about making personal choices and rationalizing our decisions, whether with pride or regret. According to Frost himself, the poem is intended as a gentle jab at his great friend and fellow poet Edward Thomas, with whom he used to take walks through the forest - Thomas always complained at the end that they should have taken a different path - and seemed amused at the interpretation of the poem as inspirational."

"What of the sigh, then?" Logan turned to the rest of the class. "I shall be telling this with a sigh – is it a sigh of regret?"

"I believe Frost said the sigh was a joke on those who thought he could ever be sorry for the road he had taken in life," a young male student dressed in a black turtle neck said.

"Well, the irony lies in how the speaker basically says the two roads are so similar, yet claims to be sorry for his choice," Suzy said.

"It's like… why be sorry? When it's done, it's done, you know?" another female student said, popping her gum.

When class let out, Suzy was in a hurry to meet her husband, and the rest of the class also disappeared before Julie had gathered her things. When she was about to leave, Logan came up to her.

"Thank you for your input tonight, Julie. Have you considered going for your college degree?"

"Um… I don't know yet. It's… I have a lot going on in my life right now."

"Many choices, huh?"

"Something like that."

"I'd like to hear your thoughts on the poem. I feel like you barely skimmed the surface with your answer, and I have a feeling you've thought about this a lot. Am I wrong?"

"No."

"Are you in a hurry to get home?"

Julie thought about it for a minute. The only thing waiting for her at home was Jason, who could care less if she was there or not. "No, not really," she decided on and sat back down.

"So tell me about it," Logan urged her on.

"Well, I keep reading this same sentence over and over…. "long I stood and looked down as far as I could"… It's like… you have all these choices, but you don't know what the outcome will be of those choices. You know what you have, but you don't know what you could have. It's scary, taking chances on unknown roads. It could backfire. You could end up in some dark gorge from which you'll never escape, or you could find happiness. But if you let an opportunity pass because you're afraid, then you might live to regret it. Who's to say which is the right choice?"