Choose Your Own Adventure
Remember those "choose your own adventure" books from the days of yore? At the end of each chapter, you had to pick one of a few options and, based on the choices you made throughout the book, you either saved the world and got the boy/girl or died alone, drifting on a raft in the Amazon where bugs and cannibals could feast on your sun-bleached flesh.
As 2004 becomes a wisp of haze in my foggy past, I can't help thinking that if life were a choose-your-own-adventure book, I'd be well on my way to dying alone on the drifting raft.
Don't get me wrong, I'm doing OK. But as a new year begins, I can't help dwelling on the past and the seemingly random inconsequential decisions I've made that have carried me to this crossroad in my life. It seems like one day, you wake up and have to choose--Pop Tarts or Corn Flakes? You innocently pick Pop Tarts because you're out of sugar and BAM! It's 10 years later and you're single with five cats because if you had just gone to the stupid grocery store to buy the sugar instead of being lazy you would have run into Mr. Right in the express checkout, dated for two years at which point he would have proposed to you on the Jumbotron during the seventh-inning stretch of the All-Star Game. Everyone you know sees it on TV and calls your cell phone to congratulate you and, in honor of the big event, your boss gives you a promotion because, really, you're the best writer he's ever EVER encountered and he knows that if he doesn't act before the marriage you might never come back from your fairytale honeymoon in Florence.
And you missed all this because of Pop Tarts.
As I sit in my dreary office in my dreary city at the most dreary time of year, I wonder about the course of a person's life. My parents raised me to believe that God has some kind of plan for me and, while I can exert free will, the Story of Susie is at least outlined in detail somewhere in the larger-than-life Book of What Will Happen on Earth for All Eternity. But even though it's all worked out somewhere else, I've got to play it out. I have to choose my own adventure.
Take, for example, a random choice I made about five years ago. I was in Boston, visiting a friend during spring break and while I was away, my mom went to some kind of party where each guest had a psychic reading. During her reading, the psychic told my mom that someone in our family would have a baby girl on Christmas--which was about nine months away. Since my sister had just had a child the month before, it was pretty much out of the question that she would have a girl by Christmas. That left me, and knowing me, my mom laughed the prediction off as a bunch of hooey, fun to hear but impossible to believe.
What mom didn't know was that while she was at her party, I was visiting an ex-boyfriend and had the opportunity to, well, let's say "renew our acquaintance." Still upset about my grandfather's death less than a week before, I extracted myself from the renewal before anything could be renewed. I just kept picturing Pap looking down at me, thinking I was a horrible person. In my half-drunk, half-grieving state, I even thought I saw him looking at me.
The ex-boyfriend got mad (as per his usual) and the next morning gave me a kiss on the cheek and sent me on my way only to tell me a few weeks later that being with me again reminded him of all the reasons we broke up in the first place. (Ouch.) We don't speak any more and I'm pretty sure he's living with some girl he's dated longer than he dated me.
But the weird thing about this story is that, while my mom's psychic person was telling her that she'd have a granddaughter by Christmas, I traveling down a road that could have made it come true. I made a decision (or quickly rolled away, however you want to phrase it :) ) and I've always wondered if that one moment changed the rest of my life. If I hadn't gotten cold feet, would I now be the mother of a four-year-old daughter instead of a single girl married to her career and graduate work? Can one tiny decision--Pop Tarts instead of Corn Flakes--alter the course of your life forever?
I don't know the answers, but I like to think there's always a chance for redemption, a chance to choose another option at the end of another chapter that puts you back on the path you're intended for. I like to think that things happen for a reason and that right now I'm in exactly the right place for me. Sure, some days life would be better if I hadn't been haunted by the Ghost of Grandpap. I might be married to the ex-boyfriend, have plenty of money for nice things and someone to come home to. But I also like to think that someday, somewhere down the road, it will be better than that. One day, maybe I'll wake up and want Corn Flakes instead of Pop Tarts. I'll go to the store and Mr. Right will ram me in the ankles with a grocery cart (accidentally, of course). I'll drop my wallet and, in stooping down to pick it up at the same time, we'll smack heads and fall hopelessly in love. All because of Corn Flakes.
As we progress through 2005, I hope all Defying Gravity readers will choose the adventure that best suits them. But as you do so, remember that if things get scary or depressing or the fire-breathing dragon gets a little too close, you'll always have another choice at the end of the next chapter. The important thing is that we just keep choosing. Maybe, just maybe, that's where the real adventure lies.
As 2004 becomes a wisp of haze in my foggy past, I can't help thinking that if life were a choose-your-own-adventure book, I'd be well on my way to dying alone on the drifting raft.
Don't get me wrong, I'm doing OK. But as a new year begins, I can't help dwelling on the past and the seemingly random inconsequential decisions I've made that have carried me to this crossroad in my life. It seems like one day, you wake up and have to choose--Pop Tarts or Corn Flakes? You innocently pick Pop Tarts because you're out of sugar and BAM! It's 10 years later and you're single with five cats because if you had just gone to the stupid grocery store to buy the sugar instead of being lazy you would have run into Mr. Right in the express checkout, dated for two years at which point he would have proposed to you on the Jumbotron during the seventh-inning stretch of the All-Star Game. Everyone you know sees it on TV and calls your cell phone to congratulate you and, in honor of the big event, your boss gives you a promotion because, really, you're the best writer he's ever EVER encountered and he knows that if he doesn't act before the marriage you might never come back from your fairytale honeymoon in Florence.
And you missed all this because of Pop Tarts.
As I sit in my dreary office in my dreary city at the most dreary time of year, I wonder about the course of a person's life. My parents raised me to believe that God has some kind of plan for me and, while I can exert free will, the Story of Susie is at least outlined in detail somewhere in the larger-than-life Book of What Will Happen on Earth for All Eternity. But even though it's all worked out somewhere else, I've got to play it out. I have to choose my own adventure.
Take, for example, a random choice I made about five years ago. I was in Boston, visiting a friend during spring break and while I was away, my mom went to some kind of party where each guest had a psychic reading. During her reading, the psychic told my mom that someone in our family would have a baby girl on Christmas--which was about nine months away. Since my sister had just had a child the month before, it was pretty much out of the question that she would have a girl by Christmas. That left me, and knowing me, my mom laughed the prediction off as a bunch of hooey, fun to hear but impossible to believe.
What mom didn't know was that while she was at her party, I was visiting an ex-boyfriend and had the opportunity to, well, let's say "renew our acquaintance." Still upset about my grandfather's death less than a week before, I extracted myself from the renewal before anything could be renewed. I just kept picturing Pap looking down at me, thinking I was a horrible person. In my half-drunk, half-grieving state, I even thought I saw him looking at me.
The ex-boyfriend got mad (as per his usual) and the next morning gave me a kiss on the cheek and sent me on my way only to tell me a few weeks later that being with me again reminded him of all the reasons we broke up in the first place. (Ouch.) We don't speak any more and I'm pretty sure he's living with some girl he's dated longer than he dated me.
But the weird thing about this story is that, while my mom's psychic person was telling her that she'd have a granddaughter by Christmas, I traveling down a road that could have made it come true. I made a decision (or quickly rolled away, however you want to phrase it :) ) and I've always wondered if that one moment changed the rest of my life. If I hadn't gotten cold feet, would I now be the mother of a four-year-old daughter instead of a single girl married to her career and graduate work? Can one tiny decision--Pop Tarts instead of Corn Flakes--alter the course of your life forever?
I don't know the answers, but I like to think there's always a chance for redemption, a chance to choose another option at the end of another chapter that puts you back on the path you're intended for. I like to think that things happen for a reason and that right now I'm in exactly the right place for me. Sure, some days life would be better if I hadn't been haunted by the Ghost of Grandpap. I might be married to the ex-boyfriend, have plenty of money for nice things and someone to come home to. But I also like to think that someday, somewhere down the road, it will be better than that. One day, maybe I'll wake up and want Corn Flakes instead of Pop Tarts. I'll go to the store and Mr. Right will ram me in the ankles with a grocery cart (accidentally, of course). I'll drop my wallet and, in stooping down to pick it up at the same time, we'll smack heads and fall hopelessly in love. All because of Corn Flakes.
As we progress through 2005, I hope all Defying Gravity readers will choose the adventure that best suits them. But as you do so, remember that if things get scary or depressing or the fire-breathing dragon gets a little too close, you'll always have another choice at the end of the next chapter. The important thing is that we just keep choosing. Maybe, just maybe, that's where the real adventure lies.
2 Comments:
Come on. Would you really want to marry someone who would propose on the jumbotron in the middle of a sporting event? Proposing like that is inconsiderate. Asking someone to make a life-changing decision, putting them on the spot, in front of thousands of people. If the answer is no, then both people are embarrassed and it'd probably end up on SportsCenter, meaning millions of people will see it. I've always wonder how many "yes" responses to these proposals are changed once the couple is out of the public eye and a "no" response can be made without embarrassment.
Also, a jumbotron proposal is unoriginal. The first person to do it atleast had originality on their side. A proposal should be one that, when you tell your friends the story of it, they can't responds that they've seen a few other couples get engaged the exact same way.
On another note, you left an important detail out of your post. What flavor are the Pop Tarts?
The Pop Tarts were strawberry.
And no, I guess I really wouldn't want someone to propose to me on the Jumbotron. In fact, I've often told people how much I hate the idea. I did hear a story once about a guy who took a PNC Park tour and, during the part when they're allowed to walk on the warning track, he proposed right there in the outfield. THAT would be OK by me. If that person were Kip Wells, it would be even better!
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