The Road You Didn't Take

Not a day in my life goes by without a Sondheim lyric resonating

[Quoted throughout this post in italics are the lyrics to THE ROAD YOU DIDN’T TAKE, by Stephen Sonheim, from his musical, FOLLIES.]

I’m exhausted. Covid morphing into long covid (supposedly) and a year of bouts with a body-slamming cough landed me in a sleep lab which resulted in a Cpap machine (along with three inhalers, two nasal sprays, and a cough capsule to be taken three times a day) meant to ameliorate the damage being caused by ceasing to breathe more than fifty times an hour while sleeping.

Now, I’m dealing with the damage caused by anxiety about the Cpap machine not functioning correctly which results in daily report cards about the number of hours I slept and whether the machine was attached correctly and how many times an hour I STILL stopped breathing, and, honestly, I might have been better off without this.

I could have chosen to say no to the Cpap. But I allowed myself to be convinced that getting the Cpap was the right thing, the wise thing, the best thing for me; all premised upon the doctor saying if I didn’t do it I’d probably have a stroke or heart attack within the next five years.

It’s another one of those decisions I made where, ever after, I’m given to wonder … and, while some might say what’s the use of wond’rin? I’m less Rodgers and Hammerstein and more Sondheim.

You're either a poet /Or you're a lover /Or you're the famous
Benjamin Stone.
You take one road. You try one door. There isn't time for any more.
One's life consists of either/or.
One has regrets / Which one forgets, / And as the years go on.
The road you didn't take Hardly comes to mind,
Does it?
The door you didn't try, Where could it have led?
The choice you didn't make Never was defined.
Was it!
Dreams you didn't dare
Are dead.
Were they ever there?
Who said!
I don't remember, I don't remember
At all.

Only, I do. Remember. One does. The many, many doors through which I might have walked and didn’t. Fear of what might happen if I did. Fear of what would happen to those from whom I’d be walking away.

This isn’t sorrow. People like to say to me, “You could have been a star.” “You should have been on Broadway.” “You should get published.” The litany of you could have and should have and might have … which implies I didn’t and wasn’t.

But I did and I was, just not in the ways or places this country defines as having achieved success.

But, I starred in tons of shows. I held audiences in the palm of my hand. I made people laugh and cry and stand and cheer. I had stalkers.

And I wrote endless plays that were performed and changed lives. I have written (and still write) thousands of letters and blog posts which touch people, spread love and light.

I sang cabaret, evenings of songs, an act. I was fairly good.

And so, okay, I wasn’t seen or heard by millions nor did I earn millions; but I think the people who needed to and were meant to hear me and see me and read me, did so. And while there were times where I only had rice and instant noodles for food, and owed way more money than I could pay, and had no home of my own, I was never living on the street, never starving.

Were there other things I could have done? Well, sure. That’s life. Reality. There are other ways, other choices, other voices, other doors, other rooms, other mistakes, other loves.

The books I'll never read / Wouldn't change a thing,
Would they?
The girls I'll never know / I'm too tired for.
The lives I'll never lead / Couldn't make me sing.
Could they? Could they? Could they?

Chances that you miss.
Ignore.
Ignorance is bliss--
What's more,
You won't remember,
You won't remember
At all, Not at all.

And you won’t remember the results of the roads you didn’t take, because you can’t know what they were, where they might have led, who that you who traveled them would have been. And, sure, you wonder and sometimes you want. You wish.

You yearn for the women, Long for the money,
Envy the famous / Benjamin Stones.
You take your road, The decades fly,
The yearnings fade, the longings die.
You learn to bid them all goodbye.

And you grow past the wanting. Or, you do if you’re lucky. Not that you don’t want, that’s not what I mean, but, rather, you stop wanting what you imagine might have been.

Not because you’re wise. But because you realize your energy is finite. You time on stage is limited.

People you love die. And you lose the parts of yourself that were reflected only in the eyes of those loved ones who have died. There are private jokes no one will ever make with you again. Memories of events and places and laughs and moments you shared, and you can no longer share them. You are living more and more parts of you alone, and as you do, as your world narrows, each moment and every remaining connection becomes ever more precious.

And oh, the peace, The blessed peace...
At last you come to know:
The roads you never take / Go through rocky ground,
Don't they?
The choices that you make / Aren't all that grim.
The worlds you never see / Still will be around,
Won't they!
The Ben I'll never be,
Who remembers him?

So, I’m exhausted. So, I try a different Cpap mask. And I work up some gratitude for my fatigue. It’s gone on long enough that I’ve had to edit my life, curtail activities, to pare and prune and whittle away, which once upon a time would have felt like skiving off, but now, I’ve got permission to delete everything that is not essential to my happiness.

And all of the have to’s and should have’s and might have been’s and why didn’t I and if only I’d’s which have long been the background music of my life-story — now, when I hear myself starting to sing those tunes, I have begun to interrupt them.

This is the road I am taking, and it’s a little (forgive me) Jerry Herman: I am who I am, and who I am, needs no excuses. So, it’s not yet time to send in the clowns, I’ve still got energy enough for being alive, and a few more boys who can f…..oxtrot.