I met myself when I was twenty as a young girl long ago.
We talked and listened to each other, understood what made us so.
We were fond of friends and family. I remember that quite well.
The arts and science, dance and drama–we enjoyed them, I could tell.
Yet, Dead End signs were posted clearly on the road I walked through life.
She screamed the warnings from within me, but I was deaf to pain or strife.
“Did you accomplish great successes?” she questioned with concern.
“No, not great, but satisfying–compromise, I had to learn.”
“If another chance be given, would you walk a different way?”
“Perhaps I would, perhaps I wouldn’t. That’s for you, not me to say.”
At fifty, and again at sixty, I reviewed my life and goal.
Contemplating each endeavor I proudly entered a new role.
We met when I reached eighty. Success and fame were far from view.
She smiled; I nodded fondly as two old friends are bound to do.
“I thought about our life together,” she revealed in mellow tones.
“If you had walked a different way, no path is smooth or free of stones.”
“You know, it hardly matters,” she spoke and stretched her hand to mine.
“Whatever path you would have taken–we would have met here by design.”
“Now the road is coming round, and soon we will be put to rest.
A life complete with joys and sorrows, I’m satisfied, we did our best!”
Written by Rita Whitman Steingold
45 Magazine Women's Literary Journal 