Not Quite by the Book

by Julie Hatcher

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. The words hit differently because the heart in question was mine, and I was determined to stop it from breaking. I just wasn’t sure how.

Had I equated service with worthiness and created my own misery in the process?

“You are worthy, Emma Rini. You are loved. And you are worthy of love. Just. As. You. Are.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. I took a moment to appreciate the narrow trail before us. “This is beautiful.” A well-trodden path wound through the forest ahead, a dark ribbon among brightly colored leaves. Many think the poem, about a fork in a road, means that we should take chances and do brave things—take the paths not taken. In reality, Frost suggested that it’s the smaller choices that make up our lives.

I would be more conscientious about how I spent my time. And the memories I chose to make with it.

I’d come to Amherst because I’d wanted to quit searching for a big, epic love. But I already had all that in front of me. And it was growing. One little niece or nephew at a time.

As it turned out, I wasn’t a recluse, a poet, a gardener, or a baker. I was a bookstore owner with a complicated but incredible family and so much life still ahead.

It is a thousand pities never to say what one feels.

Went searching for love And found it everywhere Just opened my eyes —Emma Rini