Choice, Expanded

This morning I'm thinking about how we compromise, telling ourselves (and each other) that there is a limit to how many options we have in any given circumstance. This is never true. There are always infinite choices in what we do, what we say, what we promise, where we focus our attention, and how much of ourselves we show the world. It's only when we're hurting and fearful that we constrict, that we insist we can only go as many ways as there are roads. When we relax into the moment, breathe, be truly present, we realize we needn't move at all. We can lie down in the crossroads and soak in the sun. We can bushwhack into the wilderness. We can fly, or at least pretend to (and there's fun in that).

And when we do select a pre-existing road, the choice is not irrevocable. We can always veer off onto a path of our own making.

There is never a moment when we are not choosing, nor is there a moment when our choices guarantee any given result, or when any given set of circumstances guarantee happiness. It comes down to this: we may not always have control, but we do have choice. And we can always change our minds.

I'm choosing to feel everything these days, and hide nothing, so here goes:

At the moment, I am jittery from new love and drastic life change and not quite enough food or sleep the last few days. I am sad, seeing how much I've limited myself in the past for fear of feeling all there is to feel, for fear of being alone. I'm nervous because of all the important commitments to myself and others I have yet to fulfill. And I am breathing my way into a rapidly advancing future full of promise and peril, rather than limiting my choices for the illusion of predictable safety. When A~ left, that illusion was shattered for good.

"I don't understand why anyone could ever leave you," J~ said to me yesterday, head shaking in disbelief, a single tear falling.

"I have an answer for that," I responded, though in not as many words, and not without first absorbing the compliment. "He was never sure he wanted to stay in the first place, so deep down, he could never be happy. He didn't think he had a choice."