The Journeys You Make

"Out of all the things that happen, on all the journeys that you make, in only a few will you ever see a meaning. You take them, if you can or you must, and let the rest go. The ones you keep, they're yours."--Dianne Highbridge
Those turning point moments?  Beyond the normal measuring points, a baby being born, a parent dying. Always profound, but expected. But that one moment, when it could have gone one way, but you made a different choice, so it went another.
My husband and I grew up, five years apart, going to the same summer place. He used to see me, walking with my father, and say to himself, much to his own surprise,  "I might marry that girl."
He asked me to play tennis once, and I said no. He was gorgeous, and I'm terrible at tennis, and I was trying to forestall his inevitable disappointment.
"Are you crazy?" the friend I was walking with hissed at me, as I walked away.
I wasn't crazy. What I was was scared. But every time I've ever gotten anywhere, it's been by ignoring that.
I went to my tenth high school reunion, and that was where I saw it. The people who were happy were the ones who dared. Who just left their fears in the dust, crashed on through the barricades.
I made up my mind then and there to do everything differently than my first instinct told me.
When he asked again, I said yes. When a publishing company offered me a job without pay, though we needed the money, I said yes again.
I wrote a book, my first, and my husband told me to mention that to an agent. I was scared, sure she wouldn't care, and quite sure that wouldn't go anywhere. He dared me.
I did it anyway.
I wrote another book, and then another and now I know that comfort zones pretty much only exist to push past them.