crossroads

life is an interesting thing when you get right down to it...and every choice that we make steers us in a direction that may or may not have the intended consequences.  so every time you make a decision, its a gamble.....and i'm finding that as i reflect on where i am today, there are so many different instances where my life could have taken a turn.  and i have to say, i'm certainly glad that i am where i am....i wouldnt change the life i have now for anything.  but there is always a "what if", right?

it comes up all  the time in my house right now because jake is looking at colleges - and i keep trying to tell him that NO MATTER where he chooses to go, he will be great - every school has  its advantages - and every school has its own networks....but as always, he puts pressure on himself to be the best - and therefore make the most of this opportunity.  and its an absolute  THRILL for me to see letters in the mail from schools like columbia and cornell.....but ultimately, he has to live with his decision.....and its a big one.  a life course altering one.

20 years ago, sitting where jake is, i was planning my life in a completely different way....going to james madison,  playing field hockey and probably teaching.....then i get hit with the big opportunity.....am i glad i went to brown?  u bet.  not only did i get a fabulous education - but i met the people who would  become my future.....in the largest cosmic sense of  it, jake is a direct result of that choice....no brown, no kris, no jake, luke or josh....so OF COURSE - brown was the best decision i ever made.  but clearly i didnt know that then.....then it seemed to be a choice between education and loans vs hockey and no loans.....and thanks to the foresight of my pop, i made the "smart"choice.....but it wasnt easy....and it could have gone either way.

Life is the sum of all your choices.  ~Albert Camus

this is where  jake is sitting right now......and there is no right answer....he doesn't have the luxury of hindsight to confirm his decision....he just has to make the choice that  he thinks will be the right one....and then MAKE IT the right one.

that's the part that i'm just coming  to realize myself.....the choices that have gotten me where i am today are ALL the right ones....because THIS is where i am.  sure, i could be more successful in my career, or less of a stress ball.....but i could also be living in my car or addicted to drugs.....every choice, every peak and valley in my 40 years has led me here.....and maybe i'm struggling with it a bit - but guess what - i'm pretty sure that no matter where i was, id still be struggling with it.  because that's just who i am.

To decide is to walk facing forward with nary a crick in your neck from looking back at the crossroads.  ~Betsy Cañas Garmon

so then the challenge for me becomes just embracing where i am......i'm not so sure WHY that is hard for me. but i do know that until i can actually do it, i wont be as happy as i should be.  i spend an awful lot of time comparing TODAY to yesterday.....because its so very different than i thought it would be then.  does that make any sense at all?  10 years ago, THIS (wherever  this  is) is not where i thought id be.....so somehow i'm having trouble making the reality of today, live up to the expectation of yesterday....which is unfair all the way around.  but if i break it down, is EXACTLY what my issue is. i didn't want to be the mom who wasnt home when my youngest kid got off the bus...or the mom was too  busy with work to make anything fun.....or the mom who forgot how  to use the stove.  but i am all of those things today.

for some reason its always easier for me to see the negative......but if i'm honest, i'm also the mom who makes sure my kids have their priorities straight, and the mom who shows them everyday that you have to work hard to make the things you want happen.  and hopefully im the  mom who is helping them become independent and strong.  those things SHOULD outweigh  the others......and sometimes they do.  but sometimes  they dont....some days i just want to go back to when i was home and had time to make stuff.

so this is the crossroads part....how do you embrace today, even if its not exactly what you thought it would be?  do you just keep going on as is or do you try to change it? i'lllet you know when or if i figure that part out.  i do know that this is just another choice on my journey....and it will lead me to the next step.....and fundamentally, no matter what i do or dont do, it will have to be the right thing - because its just another step in one direction or the other.  HERE is where we are all supposed to be - or we would be somewhere else.  its a crazy and circular philosophy, but it works :)

It's not what if, it's what now.

i think the thing that i need to keep in focus is that no matter what i do or dont like about my circumstances, i have a great big picture.....and the ability to change what i'm not happy about. rather than stewing (which i've been doing, and am very good at), i just need to make a decision and get over myself.  because right now, today, someone else is wishing that they had the chance.  i hope if i've learned nothing else this year so far, i appreciate my life....maybe not my exact circumstances, but definitely my health, my will, and my strength.....and the only reason i'm unhappy about my anything really is because i'm allowing myself to be....and its a waste of time and energy.  maybe it could be better....but it could definitely be worse.  so here's to better....that's what i'm choosing today - to feel better, to do better, to be better.

let's see where that leads me :)