There are roads we don’t choose in life, and not always because we choose another way. Sometimes we don’t choose any road… because maybe we don’t know what to pick. Or we think we will have more time to decide, later. But these crossroads pass by quick. By not choosing, the choices are often made for us.

I’ve lived in rural America most of my life, and definitely since I’ve been old enough to put myself behind the wheel of a vehicle. I learned to drive on the backroads of Missouri and Arkansas. I traveled miles of dusty stretches of road, not passing one other car. Turn left. Go right. Stay straight. All choices you made on the fly, and let the road take you where it may. I have a mental map that holds miles of back ways — to here and there and yon. It was only by the traveling and choosing that I found my way there.

In life we are faced with similar crossroads. Do you choose this way? Or that? When we’re young, the choices are simpler. Left or right? The stakes were lower, and regardless of the choice, all would work out okay. That blind, youthful optimism we have in those early days.

But we get older. And the choices get harder. The stakes get higher. And sometimes, we just don’t know the way damn it! We don’t know the best choice, because they’re both fraught with consequences, good and bad.

This can be the time that we hunker and freeze. Or get that ol’ screw it attitude and quit caring. Or we shut down and shut out. Or we distract and dissociate. I’ve done all of these. And that path I didn’t choose got chose for me. Because life doesn’t wait on us, does it?

So much of my life was spent reacting to things that were happening. I spent a lifetime reactive. And I had to react as much as I did because I didn’t choose my path more intentionally. When the storms of life came, as they do, I was caught and blown a direction.

This painting represents those times… The roads we don’t choose, and how that shapes the direction of our life.