Next week, John and I will celebrate our 20^th Anniversary. Twenty years which have gone so quickly, and pretty darn smoothly.

He’s away for the weekend, and he sent me an e-mail early this morning.    It read “What a day so far…7:04am!” and had a photo attachment.  When I opened the photo I saw two dead turkeys in a wheelbarrow.   Yup.  That’s right. Two dead turkeys.

A few months ago, he started reading books like “Mountain Man” and “Crow Killer”.  He got so involved in them that he decided he wanted to BE a mountain man.  He started searching on e-bay for a coonskin hat.  He watched YouTube videos about skinning beavers.  And he told me that he was thinking about taking the test for a hunting license.

I’m a vegetarian, by the way.  An ahimsa-practicing-yogi-vegetarian. Anyway, he took the hunting test. Got his license.  Got himself invited to go hunting. And now, apparently, he has killed a turkey.

So what do I say?   Good for him!  This is what he wanted to do.  He made a decision, followed through, and fulfilled a dream.   Does it matter that the dream doesn’t fit in with MY way of thinking?  Nope. Not at all.  It’s his path, not mine.

Just as he barely blinked when I started bringing elephant statues and incense into the house; when I gave up a stable job to pursue the life of a yogi-teacher; when I began to sing Om Namah Shivaya in the shower; I congratulate him on his first (gulp) kill.

Okay, it’s a little hard to actually say it. But I will, anyway.

This life of ours is a road trip.  We’ve been traveling along the highway together in separate vehicles for over twenty years now.    Sometimes one of us wants to make a pit stop at a point of interest along the way, and the other does not.  No matter.  We know we’ll meet back up a little further along the road, talk of our off-road adventures, and continue on.

[Happy Anniversary, Johnny.  And Congratulations on your first (and maybe only??) kill.]