My chosen path

Sometimes, I wish I could start my journey again, one more chance to live my life a different way. I believe that I have done the best I could with the paths I have chosen. I only wonder if perhaps I turned down a trail or two that I was meant to pass by and if given another chance, would have chosen another direction to travel. Which would have made my travels less painful, for myself and those who traveled with me.
I can look back and see the road that has led me to where I am today. I understand that as a child, not all the choices were mine to make, that my direction through life was mapped out by the choices that the adults on my path made for me. I choose to believe that they made their choices based on my best interests as they believed. I also acknowledge that as I was growing up, I sometimes took the path that would lead me away from situations and circumstances that I had no other control over, other than to leave them behind quickly and without question. Sometimes the only path available was one that would have consequences which would take me down another path better left untraveled.
As an adult, my choices were mine alone and I made mistakes. I have gotten myself as lost as a soul can be, I have stood on my path and seen absolutely no clear direction in which to turn, I have wandered off my path into unforgiving wilderness of my own making. The mistakes I have made are lessons I have learned and they are a part of who I am today.
All along my path through life I have had people who cared about me who have helped guide my way. Quite a few times one of those guiding hands had to give me a good shove in the right direction, and times when one of those hands had to grab ahold of me and pull me back from a road leading to destruction. Even with those caring hands and hearts to help me, still I managed to elude them and stumble the wrong way more times than I care to admit.
I believe that fate and destiny are not the same thing, they are connected though, one leads to the other, always. Fate draws the map, the paths you take by choice or otherwise, destiny is the end of the road you will someday, somehow end up reaching regardless of the paths that led you there.
Everyone is given a destiny for their soul, and fate will lead you there but she has a laugh or twenty first, she is a vindictive bitch with a warped sense of humor.

Story ID:	732
Written by:	Catherine AimeeRuth Grainger (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Musings, Essays and Such
Location:	Mauston Wisconsin United States
Year:	2006
Person:	Myself