Don't Think Twice It's Alright · Bob Dylan

     I can play things a million times over and over in my head.  I can wonder if this would have led to that and if that could have meant this...but I'll never truly know.   There are countless decisions that not only altered that one moment but all of the ones following.  If.  If only.  What if?  Maybe I should have...it keeps going and going.  The truth is none of that matters right now.  Now we get the road in front of us.  Now we get to choose.  We get to take all we have done and move forward to a better and bigger person.
     I can analyze why laundry that my mother did back in the 70's took her life in such a sudden and horrible way all of these years later.  I can look back at the last two years of anguish as a couple tried to figure out why they had failed a marriage.  I can be heartbroken that a man who was my hero since birth is letting me down so much these days.  I have been awake nights trying to figure out the relationships of family and friends and why some are so wonderful and others are so cruel.  But in that constant analyzing comes constant pain and frustration.  And after hours of pondering...I come to the same place.  A place where I will never really have the answers to these questions.  So why does all of this time get spent trying?  Does it put me in the classroom I have been teaching in since the 90's?  The one that is decorated with color coded words of encouragement placed in between Teacher of the Year awards?  Does it change the fact that I worked hard on a house and decorated it just so...but someone else is living in right now?  Does it bring back the babies that were lost? Does it change the job I dedicated myself to for so many years that was lost?  Nope.  It doesn't.
If I sit and think about the choices and regrets along the way...I would go out of my mind.  Especially since I sacrificed and took many of the right roads while others were selfish and took the wrong roads.
So it leaves me here in a place where I accept all that has happened has made me who I am.  That the horrible price to pay for one thing might have actually been better than the even more horrible thing that might have happened.  That someday the outcome will outweigh the fight.  The loop has to stop.  The regrets need to be changed to simple decisions.  The lessons have been learned.
     Eight months in and a looming birthday ahead and I do feel truly different in so many ways.  I have enjoyed the process in between tantrums and tears that accompany it.  I continue to push and pull where needed...fighting not only myself but those around me that have to feel the change as well.  I hope I am making better decisions based on loads of experience instead of merely on unicorns and daydreams.  And somewhere in all of it I have to forgive myself and others for where we are today...because the outcome is here whether I like it or not.  Now it is up to the choices I make moving forward and the respect that I have for the journey.