Labryinth

There it was, a secret path, separating the cull-de-sac from the main road, through a few feet of brush. It seemed miles wide and never-ending. My friends, Mandy, Ashley and Rebecca, used the path everyday. They were a year or so older than I was and were not starting Kindergarten like me. The school we all attended lay just beyond the street that was separated by the path. Their way to school each morning made significant use of the secret trek and I watched from my driveway as they disappeared out of sight.

Kindergarten started an hour later than the other grades and was only half day for me. So my mother would take me in our old brown car and drop me off in the circle drive at the rear of the school. I never got a chance to walk with the other girls through the hidden maze. I rarely even got to see where it was as every time I got close, someone's mother would call for me to come closer to the house.

For an entire year the path remained closed to me, I only envied from afar. I felt as though if I had walked that path and peered out over the cars on the street I would know I belonged here. We had only moved in a few months before my Kindergarten year, and everything was happening so fast. I wanted and needed acceptance and this was the way to get it. The secret path was not only the short cut to school it was also the path to belonging, maturity and friendship.

My Kindergarten year came and passed without notice. Mrs. Sailor did a wonderful job supplying for me, in her classroom, what I believed this path would accomplish. I had friends, I grew up and I was beginning to feel right at home. Eventually as the friends on my block were interested in other things, the path became less of a necessity. Until, one day, my parents decided to move again. With two new siblings in the family and my grandparents miles away, our family picked up and moved back to where I was born.

Before we left, the path struck me. I knew that I had to walk through the path before I left that place forever. I needed to show myself I could do it. It wasn't the same as before, it signified moving on, walking toward the unknown and I knew if I could conquer the secret path, I could conquer whatever lie ahead. On a summer, Saturday morning I walked from my driveway, down the cull-de-sac and right into the path. Not more than 3 feet later was I on the other side of a ditch with a sidewalk. I stared at the once daring, and now, not so secret path with glorious achievement.