Choices. . .

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about choices. I've come to see that choices that we think are thought out from every angle, well, they can have new angles down the road. I'm not one to regret. I have never been one to look back and think that my choices are wrong. I'm not one to look back and wonder what could have been if I took the other path. I can see my choices, and I can see how they shaped me. But, lately, I've been wondering if I truly had a concept of how my choices may affect me down the road.

Let's just break it down to the big thing right now: I know I'm not perfect. I know that I have made choices and I own them. I have a list that I keep in my own head of the things that I don't like about myself, the things I can change, the things I know that I will have to live with. It isn't until I see the SAME list of things reflected back to me by somebody else as reasons they couldn't be with you that they become sources of major contention. I have 12 tattoos. . .each one, at the time it was done, meant something important to me. I don't get memorial tattoos. . .I get things that mean something to me. In most cases, you can't see them when I am dressed normally. I did this on purpose. . .but now I'm thinking that maybe I didn't think them through at all. I never considered that they could block something good from being a part of my life. . .

Lately I've been thinking about my choice to abandon any and all religion. I don't feel like any God could have let me see the things I've seen, or go through the things I've gone through. There are things. . .let's just say that sometimes it's hard to imagine that I went through something because God gave the other people in the situation free will. I know God. ..we just don't communicate well. I don't know how to explain it, but I feel like maybe it's time to find some strength in the Lord, and I wonder how much different my life could be with that simple choice made.

I've been thinking marriage and children. I never thought I'd want to be married or have more kids. I've always thought it wouldn't be fair to my child, who is literally older than I was when I got pregnant with him, to have siblings that could be fairly close in age to his own children. Now I've begun to think that God has a plan for me, and I shouldn't prevent it from happening. As for marriage, well, I've always had an interesting view of it. I really believe that if you go into a marriage with even one hang up that goes something like "if this person ever does (blank), I'm gone" that it means you are expecting to fail. I think that the best way to go into it is to say "no matter what, we are making this work. Divorce is not an option." Perhaps that is idealistic. But I know that my parents, and especially my grandparents, had been married forever by the time they were my age. My grandparents were married 63 years. Amazing. And as sad as it was to watch my grandfather after my grandmother died. . .I couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to share a love, a life, that way. It's a dream of mine. . .to sit on a porch swing after twenty, thirty, fifty years with somebody and to not have to speak because the movies of our life just play in our minds. The comfort of having walked a path filled with laughter, love, heartache, health scares, children, lean times, rich times, would be so fulfilling. I've not let myself admit that because I don't think I deserve it. But I do.

Weight. . .sigh. Well, I obviously made a million little choices that led to me being this weight. I ate what I wanted and let the scale reflect it. I did little to attempt control. . .and now I have to face the battle of taking the weight off. I've got a good running start. . .but I wonder if I'm really cut out to be thin. I don't really think I'll ever see myself as a thin, pretty girl. It reflects in other choices. . .like choosing to wear boy clothes, be a tomboy, not do anything that makes me girly. To me, girly is weak. Girly asks for trouble. But I'm not as tough as I look. I WANT to be healthy. I don't care what the scale says. I WANT to feel good when I walk down the street. I want to know that, even if I have loose skin or areas that gravity hasn't been kind to, I have the right to be thin. . .and healthy. I've put off quitting smoking just so that I wouldn't balloon up with eating my way through cravings. Two days into the quitting smoking thing, well, I'm doing fine.

I am my own worse enemy. I'm working to better myself. I'm working to finish what I start. I'm working on believing that I am capable of doing anything I set my mind to. And I'm working to look back and learn the lessons I needed from my decisions in the past, things I haven't looked at before because I don't want to dwell in the past. Choices. . .