We all make choices. I am not talking everyday little choices. And yeah yeah I know everyday little choices add up to big choices, like I get that. I am talking about BIG choices. Where to live, where to work, where to travel, do I have kids, do I TRY to have kids (too late for that now lol), who your partner is in life, etc.

Would it not be fabulous if the only choices we had to make were what kind of coffee to have, do I want to wear my hair wavy or straight today, should I go to the lake or the woods (99% of the time, it is the lake), or do I want to make today a cell phone free day?! I would love every day to be a cell phone-free day.

Why do the BIG choices not work out sometimes? How can we be sooooooo sure that they will and then one day, POOF, they don’t?

I was 100% convinced that when I moved to Colorado in the spring of 2023, I would live there forever and retire from the National Park Service. You could not have convinced me otherwise. Instead, I lasted four months and I am back working in the same hospital I was convinced I had left behind to never return. The place is great and I really like what I do but how I could I have been so sure about Colorado?

If I had stayed in Colorado, I would not be living in my childhood home looking after my parent, whom I love, who is in cognitive decline. So, everything must happen for a reason? I guess, but man, it would be great if said parent was healthy and I lived back in California (not Colorado), living my best life. I know life doesn’t stand still, but does it have to be a rollercoaster? Why not just a really cool roadtrip? Maybe it is and I just can’t see it right now.

What about the people who marry multiple times, thinking each time that person was the one and it would stick, happily ever after? Why do people want to put themselves through turmoil? And I could definitely say the same for any romantic relationship. I myself have never been 100% sure about the man I am with. But with each new relationship I would be amiss to think in the lovey-dovey beginning that a hint of the future didn’t spring into my hopeless romantic brain!

And here is another big one. JOBS. How the heck do we end up in a job that we deep down never really wanted to work?

Why can’t we all be BRAVE enough to follow what is our passion? I certainly am not.

If I had my druthers I would be living in a tiny house, on land with a big garden and my sweet pup Lula who would be roaming free chasing the sun as it fades into dusk. I would have giant tomato plants and towering beans, endless swisschard that forever grows like a weed, big delicous carrots growing in rich soil, tall corn stalks, cucumbers, squash and big thick gardens of wildflowers so bees, so many bees, could pollinate and have restful naps in the petals.

How do I make choices for that life? How do I choose between keeping a promise to my dad about him living out his life in his home and me making the home of my dreams? I already know I will be in Ohio for many years to come, and Cleveland is home. My family is here, my friends, my beloved Lake Erie, and most of all my…. my what?… not sure how to finish that one, but something is here that I love, and I quite can’t put my finger on it.

I guess I just wish that one freaking choice that I make leads to the life I dream of living. I get so stuck in the doldrums of everyday life that I wake up far from where I’d like to be.

Where is the balance in the choices I make?

~L

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do 
with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver