The Road Less Traveled

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;

And 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 road less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

~Robert Frost

I was first introduced to this poem sometime in college. It struck a cord because I had some self important feeling that I was blazing some trail and taking the road less traveled. Last night, as Daniel and I were watching Army Wives and crying during one of the saddest episodes of TV ever, it occurred to me that now I really am on the road less traveled. While there are thousands and thousands of us military spouses out there, we're still in a minority. We have chosen this life, with all its up and downs and with all the sacrifices it asks of us. However, choosing this life doesn't make it any easier. It is never easy to be woken at midnight to the possibility of a long separation; a deep sleep turned into a racing mind going over all that would need to be done, and all I could do was grip the back of my husbands shirt and pray he wouldn't leave. As spouses of military we are asked to do things like move alone (a lot), we pack up kids and belongings with startling regularity and make a new home somewhere else. We move back home with our parents or in-laws for months on end while our spouses are deployed. Worst of all sometimes we have to explain to a young child that we're so sad because a friend was killed, or worse.

There are many days when someone has asked me how I do it and my response is, "I don't know." It takes trust and love, trusting God that it will work out and that he gives me the strength to handle what is thrown at me. I have to trust my spouse over long separations and love him through it all. Then there is the group of women that are my sisters-in-arms, we stand together through it all. We encourage each other, celebrate a husbands return as ours prepares to leave, we talk endlessly about parenting, and we hold each other up when things feel impossible. Most importantly, we understand. We know what it is like to tuck kids into bed night after night praying for Daddy to come home safely and then stay up way later than we should because it's hard to go to bed alone, we don't have to explain to each other what it's like to lead this life we have chosen, to follow the road less traveled.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28