Nudging fate

Maybe it's because I just turned 44.
Mid-40s. No way around it.
How did I get here? Wasn't it the day before yesterday when I was standing on the commons at Bridgewater College wondering where I would be when I turned 24? I remember it clearly. It was early spring. The dogwoods in front of Cole Hall were blooming. It was the end of my freshman year and I couldn't believe this dramatic first year away from home was coming to a close.
How could I go home and obey Mom and Dad after a year of staying up late and making my own decisions about everything?
On a hot August night, I stood on the midway at the Shenandoah County Fair and thought about how many fairs had come and gone since I arrived in Woodstock in 1985 at the ripe old age of 24.
Nineteen fairs have opened and closed since I first came here 20 years ago. I arrived in September, about a month after the fair of 1985.
It was a hasty decision on my part. The assistant editor at the daily paper where I worked in Harrisonburg chose to come to Woodstock to edit the weekly newspaper after the editor there skipped down the road to start his own newspaper.
I told Dean I would come here for awhile, never dreaming I would stay more than two years. I pretty much knew that I wanted to work for a magazine writing feature articles about exotic places and people.
That's not to say I didn't do stories on exotic places and people in Shenandoah County. There was the guy who had albino bees and 6-foot-tall bean plants. The lady who collected salt and pepper shakers. There was Katie the German Shepherd, who ran an elaborate agility course in her owner's yard. And the flowing-maned smooth-gaited Paso Fino gelding who gave me the best ride of my life.
Not all of the stories were worthy of memory and so I've forgotten them.
Or at least I've laid them to rest for resurrection only at the right time. When I get together with a few members of the original cast of characters who recall those early years at the Herald, it doesn't hurt to remember the unpleasant or embarrassing times. We're like war buddies who made it through deadlines each week, working into the wee hours of the morning to put together the best local newspaper we could.
I don't specifically remember turning 34 while at the paper, but I do remember 35. I've never done well on the odd years. Twenty-five was a hard one and so was 35. Both times I was struggling with the overwhelming feeling that I should have been somewhere else doing something much more important.
From the time I was a young writer (9 or 10), I thought something special would happen to me - that I was destined for some kind of greatness. I kept that notion a secret. It was really the only thing that made me feel special and I didn't want that silver lining to be tarnished by other things.
As the decades have passed, I've redefined my hope for something "special" in my life. Some great things have happened, and, God willing, more special times and people will be part of my future.
I confess, however, that in a shady part of my heart, I still feed tiny twigs of hope to the small bright flame that burns with those early dreams of a destiny chartered for me by fate. It is my eternal flame.
When I blew out the candles on my birthday cupcake, I made a wish.
No, I can't say, then it won't come true.
Let's just say I gave fate a nudge.