Our Life Choices By Linda Stowe
The other day my brother and I were talking about the choices we’ve made and how, had we chosen differently, our lives might have taken a completely different shape. It’s an ideal kind of conversation to have with someone who’s known you forever—someone who already knows your backstory, so you don’t have to explain much.
I thought more about this today, wondering if there were any choices I’d erase or remake, and I realized that even the bad ones carried me to where I am now. The hard lessons, the difficult stretches, even the bad marriages—they all played a part.
For example, I remembered the time I was paying my friend Peggy $100 a month to sleep on her couch after leaving my second husband. I stayed with my mom and dad for a while, but their place on the farm near Camden made everything harder. Staying with Peggy was cheaper and less disruptive for them. But then she rented out her other couch to a guy I didn’t know, and that same day I went out and signed the lease on an apartment. It was months before I had any furniture, but I still felt safer sleeping on my own floor. And if I hadn’t been living in that apartment, I never would have met the people who ended up changing my life.
Funny how even the bad choices can have a purpose.
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Polly here.
I love every word of this. The thing is. I have many regrets in life.
Life has a strange way of asking us to look at our past, both the bad and the good. Most of us, at one time or another, have wished we could edit our past stories. Maybe we would like to wave a magic wand and remove all of those rough chapters. Even just the words.
But our paths and our meaning are never perfect. Life gathers itself in all those moments we’ve lived through. All those experiences have shaped our patience, our judgment, and our will. Our inner selves. When we pause long enough to see it, we realize that our past may be quite imperfect. But every past story of ours has carried us exactly where we need to be.
I always try to remember that every moment builds on the next. I would not be here, in this place, right now, if it were not for every bit of my history, with every tick of the tocking clock. Not only in my own life, but in the multitude of generations before me.
