Choices

Had a conversation about possibilities and the future last night. Nothing specific to me, I was helping someone else clear out their head a bit, but it got me thinking about the choices I make and how it affects where I am and where I'm going.

Bear in mind, that I had a period of my life to kick at all these things in my head. I went to Tony Robbins seminars about how to make the life of your dreams, visualizing goals, yadda yadda. Lots of self help books. I learned about having the courage to say something isn't right in getting a divorce, and boy, there's nothng more scary than saying something like that isn't right. I still feel I made the right choice, but whew! It's tough! And I went through the therapy to be ok with it. Yes, it takes therapy in my opinion. If you can't clean out your own head on this stuff, you have to learn to live with carrying around that baggage. And dumping it on everyone around you. No thanks, I'll take the brainwash option, Bob...

But yeah, what it all came down to in my universe is basically this. Who and what do I want in my life, and what does it take to make that possible? I knew I wanted a better job than the ones I've been getting, so I figured out that law was a good place for me. Here I am. I figured out that I needed to live somewhere more worldly and diverse than Western NY. Here I am, with a bit of meandering. I figured out that I need creative crap in my life - hence dancing, sewing, SCA, music, etc. There it is.

But beyond that, I dunno. I think I want kids, but you give up a lot in having them. You gain a lot too. And who do I need to decide to be with to make that happen? But a lot depends on where I end up after school. I hate the thought that "things will work themselves out". That's kinda scary, since the last time I let that happen, I ended up married to a nice guy, but we made each other miserable. Eh, who knows? Job might define a lot of this, but not being sure about what kind of job I want is making this a bit unfocused. As for relationships, I've got the skills to be happy with someone. Relationships are a skill - don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It takes skill to ignore the things that annoy you, to gently bring up things that need to be discussed, to keep things going, to mesh with someone else's life, to define what you need. It's never easy, you make mistakes. There's not happily ever after - it's a kind of career thing. You have to choose to be with someone over being alone. Once I lost that princess "take care of me" mentality, everything got a lot easier. And real. You don't make each other happy, you "find" your happy in the relationship. Big difference in expectations there. If you're both not getting what you want, it ain't gonna work.

And I guess I'm just not really interested in mediocre. I don't want to have the "go to work, come home, watch tv, go to bed" routine that seems to be everyone's life. Sure, we all do that to some extent, but it just isn't satisfying to me on a constant basis. Some routine is ok, but I can't even manage to watch the same tv show two weeks in a row unless I'm really dilligent. Just not my thing. So we'll see. I'm not sure, I'm kind of in a holding pattern until school and the bar is over. But I hate holding patterns too. What's the point unless you're enjoying the journey, eh?

Wow... that was all rather deep. Perhaps I should watch more South Park and Drawn Together. Off to drink with my family all weekend. Dammit, why did the airlines stop letting you take liquids on the plane? Red eyes were so much more satisfying when you could start the morning with a bloody mary. Remind me to beat up a terrorist.