The Journey Before

Think of that one second, right before you walked into that new beginning. That second of inhaled breath, that slight pause you're body made before that last step into the unknown. That fluttering heartbeat, the slow close of your eyelids almost like old shutters trying to keep out sunlight. It's almost painful, a dull pain, that pulls you from your mind to remind you where you stand, in reality. You breath, remember why you made this decision and plunge your way into the dream like reality you have led yourself into. This is what I felt when they told me I was going to India. It was a mind explosion (the good kind:)), and not a small one. It was huge, like the ones you saw in TV after the hero couldnt stop it and everyone ducks for cover. Except it wasn't an atrocity before me that I saw when I opened my eyes. It was a yellow broken road, a road of expectation that had long been in placed before I had ever even come into existence. It told me; 
go to school, 
get good grades, 
go to high school, 
get good grades,
go to college, 
graduate,
then find a job 
and be happy.  
But my road had just been destroyed in front of me. And with a little squinting and good eyesight, if I looked far enough I could just barely see the other side. It was right there, just waiting for me to walk around the explosion and make my way back onto it. I was faced with two choices. Stay steady in my solo road to socially acceptable “success” or take the hand of chance and walk into the unknown land that I had never even bothered to look around at. It was then in that second, that one second I had talked about, which I took my first step and walked off the road.