So…do you digress much? It sounds like a bad pick-up line at a senior citizen’s dating club. I half expect to see an octogenarian wearing bell bottoms and a shirt that is unbuttoned half way down his chest winking from across the table. Senior citizen dating – whatever possessed me to go there?

Alas, I must humbly admit that I do digress – A LOT.

I have been thinking recently that digression may be a sign of aging – be it a blessing or a curse. My theory is that the older you are the more you know and the more experiences and memories you have accumulated. That means you have more linkage and cross-linkage in your brain and are more likely to come across inject triggers as you are talking about something else. To others it may seem that you cannot stay on topic or that your attention span is terribly short, but the truth is that you have a mental post-it note on a word, thought, smell, visual, sound, etc. that can be innocently triggered without notice smack dab in the middle of a conversation about something completely different.

I have noticed that my instances of digression have increased over the years. Now my head is so full of stuff that I am lucky to get through a sentence without taking an unexpected left turn. Lately, I have been paying more attention to this phenomenon and have been purposeful in trying to logically loop my digression back to the original conversation as if it was my purpose to digress all along (diabolical, I know).  🙂

I must say I quite enjoy digression some days. It is the equivalent of heading down a path to a set destination, but allowing yourself to explore other paths that you come upon along the way. Well, when I put it that way it reminds me of my favorite Robert Frost poem – The Road Not Taken. I have the poem on a poster hanging outside my office at NDSU. I have it there to remind my students (and indeed myself) about the power our choices have on our life experiences. It is a poem that is widely misunderstood as being a push for individualism, but according to Frost it is really no more than a commentary on the path our choices may take us on for better or worse.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Ah yes, I love that poem, but I do digress…but dare I say that – herein, digression has made all the difference.

I do believe I will digress with aplomb in the new forty and make no apologies for it. I am going to embrace the notion that digression is an indicator of a life filled with experiences worth remembering – and I am going to thank God that I am fortunate enough to remember them – it’s all good!

Day thirteen of the new forty – obla di obla da