Mapping the World

When we are born we know of no location, then as we grow we start to identify places. We map the layout of our house, we map the layout of our grandparents house. Thus we begin to acquire a collection of small maps in our mind. Each one is in no way connected to another, that will come later. As time goes by we learn roads, only the main ones at first, but then you branch out and learn some side streets as well.
And so it is that your expanse of the world grows with the map in your head. Two maps become one when you can plot the course between them. But still several maps exist, if you've ever flown anywhere, where you weren't the pilot, you may know the general location of this new map but you can't connect to any of your others.
Not everyone expands their maps beyond the necessity, but most do. So as you grow so too does your knowledge of your surroundings. Occasionally when I'm driving to university or somewhere similar I'll pass a street, the same street I've passed a million times before, and a visual map will appear in my head. It will have the turn off for that street coming off the one I'm on but then there will be a blank space. That section of my map is still uncharted. I've connected my maps around it but never explored the area in it's entirety. I contemplate turning down those streets, they are the parts of my map that are missing, the choices in my life that I never took. If every choice was as easy as turning down a street I'd imagine we'd have the whole globe mapped. Life is like mapping. You chart your course and set sail. When I look at those streets that I know the names of but don't really know they allow me to realize that although I've never traveled them, the roads still exist if I should ever change my mind, anything is possible you need only take a different route.
We may not be great, we may not go far, but we are all map makers and we chart our own course. Charting our way to the stars.