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I have recently come to the conclusion that having too many options can be a bad thing.

As I sit here, a blustery and rainy Melbourne day thrashing about outside, I am pondering the myriad possibilities available to me, and to my nearest and dearest.

For starters, there is my elderly relative who needs to decide if it is time to admit she can no longer struggle on in semi-faux-independence at home, embrace a new stage in life and move into assisted living. She sees it as somewhere people go to wait to die; I see it for what it has become – a safer option for everyday living with a whole lot of activities you can choose (or choose not) to be involved in. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s all beer and skittles, but it’s also not all adult nappies and kerosene baths either. And when it comes down to it (yes, yes, I know I shouldn’t start a sentence with ‘and’ – don’t write in), isn’t it better than tripping on the rug, falling and breaking something important (like a hip, not a Ming vase) and lying there for a week waiting to be found?

Second on my list of nearest and dearest is a much-loved gal who is wrestling with the concept of a new relationship and the pros and cons of it all. Mr Might-Be-Right is looking at early retirement, a winding down. She is looking at ramping it up a bit – volunteering abroad, learning and experiencing and adventuring (if that’s not a word, it should be). The rub is this: how much of what we dearly wish to do with our lives, our time, our passions, our skills and our intellect are we prepared to... (it is extraordinarily difficult to choose the right word here)...forego / relinquish / negotiate / sacrifice for the right person? What if we get to do everything we want, exactly the way we want to for our whole lives and still end up unhappy at the end. Sobering thought, non?

Life is about decisions, options, the forks in the road, taking the path less travelled, jumping in and living, as well as sitting back to rest and contemplate.

We can’t be GO GO GO all the time, but neither should we live at Hermit Camp (one of my favourite concepts). Some of the most fun times in our lives are also the messiest...think of that Tomato Festival thingie in Spain...Italy...somewhere fabulous...where they have one massive tomato fight with thousands of people. Now, I don’t like to get to dirty, messy or sweaty, but DAMN if that doesn’t look like a WHOLE lot of fun !!!

Third on my list of fabulous people in my life struggling a little with options, are the ones trying to decide whether to have a child. These are people in stable, long term relationships, with the resources to care for and raise a child in a loving and healthy environment. Their issues range from “Do I want to bring a child into this world” to “What if I can’t have a baby?” and everything in between, outside, under and around those issues. It can be heartbreaking when your body will not ‘play nice’ and too many of my friends are in that boat right now.

Lastly, dear reader, we come to my (good) self. It has been an extremely tricky 6 months for me and mine. Last year, exhausted and worn down by many of life’s challenges over far too long a timeframe, I packed a garbage bag of my belongings and fled the marital home. I won’t bore you with the details, suffice to say that my partner and I had both managed to do many, many things that hurt each other and neither of us could even vaguely conceive of a way back. So, I planned a whole new very different life and set about making that happen.

Enter Stage Left: the wedding of two of our close and much-loved family friends. Now, I always cry at weddings...and funerals...heck, I even cried at “Muppets in Space” when Gonzo was going to fly back to his home planet. My very sensible son, who was eight at the time, put his little hand on my knee and whispered “Don’t cry, mum, it’s only a movie”. Sadly, and humiliatingly, I continued to sob quietly in my seat while my son and his two friends tried to pretend they were not with me. Anyway, I digress (as usual). Back to The Wedding...

Up stood the happy couple, holding hands and beaming at each other, with an appropriate level of brevity...and some levity thrown in (the groom wore Converse sneakers)...and I was hit with an incredibly clear memory of standing up on my own wedding day, holding hands with my partner. We made promises to each other that day. We gave our word. We said we were in, boots and all, come hell or high water.

So, what does our word mean? What weight does a promise hold? It used to be that a person’s word was their bond, their contract, their promissory note; an enforceable and binding covenant with another person. I’m not sure what it means now.

My husband and I were almost 30 when we got married. We had dated on and off for seven years. I also had a child from a previous relationship. So, we had studied, worked, partnered, parented, almost gone bankrupt, etc, BEFORE we stood up, held hands and promised to be two halves of one whole. We had SOME idea what we were doing.

I should also clearly point out at this time that there was no violence in our house, no substance abuse or any other reason why we could not live safely with each other. We had simply worked too hard, pushed ourselves too far, over-extended, under-resourced and burned off every last shred of goodwill we had built over 16 years together.

But here, amazingly and completely out of left field, was a sudden stunning reminder of not only the promises we made but the reasons we made them. So, despite everything we had done to each other, we embraced the mess, took the path less travelled and are working (albeit, slowly) towards putting the two halves of the whole back together.

I don’t know how it will go or how long it will take but I do know this: life is a one-off, an all-you-can-eat buffet.... We can’t allow ourselves to fall victim to Analysis Paralysis...we have to get in there and get messy. Don’t be afraid of the big decisions – be comforted that you are not the first one to face whatever it is you are facing. There is wisdom in the counsel of others – ask, dig, thrash out, talk, wrestle and accept that sometimes the wrong decisions can end up taking us somewhere beautiful, if we can just keep putting one foot in front of the other in the really bad times.

My wish for all of us this year is that we never shrink from life but get in there and get messy – nothing is forever.

 

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