"There is a choice you make in everything you do. In the end, the choice you make, makes you." ~Author Unknown

I have come to be a pretty big believer in choice.  We makes choices everyday, all day long.  Some choices are easier than others and some impact ourselves and others in different ways.  But I really want to believe I have some control over my life and I think that is where choices come in.  I feel like I have made some very specific choices over the past few years in order to live the life, personally and professionally, that I would like to live...to be the kind of wife and mother I want to be.  I think, for the most part, I am fairly satisfied with my choices.  There are some things that I might have done differently given the chance again, but I don't really have any regrets. 

It has actually gotten easier to make choices in some ways. For example, choices regarding my time are getting much easier to make.  I have done such a better job of saying "No." I have convinced myself that "No." is a complete sentence.  I have done a better job of keeping my ideas for something manageable instead of a grand plan that later leaves me cursing myself out at 2 a.m.  Even though I want a clean and organized house, I will sit down and play tea party every time it is asked.  I don't get time back and I try to choose wisely how I use it. It isn't always easy, but I feel like I am getting a handle on it.

Even things like external experiences are getting easier to manage by keeping the idea of choice in mind.  Take my recent car accident for example.  It was horrible and it was scary.  I didn't leave my house that morning choosing to collide with a 14 year old boy on a skateboard.  If there could have been any choice to make that would have resulted in me not having that experience, I would have made it...but there wasn't.  I was certainly upset that day and even since then I am much more nervous when I am driving but I am not ranting and raving or carrying on about it everyday letting it affect me still.  A thing, of which I had no control over, happened and now I am choosing the manner in which I want to deal with it all.  Not always easy, but I can make sense of it.

BUT, (you did know there would be a "but", didn't you?) there are still times where the choices aren't all that easy to make.  Most of the time, those hard choices involve how I am going to react to other people's choices.  Not a stranger's choice, like the young skateboarder from a couple of weeks ago, but those people close to me.  The people who I love, who with their actions or words, force me into a situation where a hard choice has to be made.  Often times, my choice to other's behavior or words could seem selfish or hurtful.  I know that I don't make a choice for the sole purpose of trying to hurt someone, but I suppose there could be some truth to the selfish part, if I am really honest with myself.  There is a need I have to protect Taelin, Joe and myself, our little family unit, and I will...without apology.

Maybe it isn't so much the choice that is hard to make, but rather the fallout from the choice.  I don't really like confrontation...dealing with other people's anger is something I would rather avoid.  I don't like seeing people sad or hurt.  And I certainly don't like any of those things as a result of something I choose.  But yet, I find myself there.  Making choices I know are going to be hard for others to understand.  Making choices I know are going to make them angry and hurt and sad.  Making choices that are not the ones they would hope I would make.  And I guess thinking about those reactions, is what can make a choice hard for me to make...but  it shouldn't stop me from making the right choice for myself or my family.

So, I guess from that just comes more choices.  A sort of life dominoes game...a series of reactions set into motion by the choices we and the people around us make.  

Life is the sum of all your choices.  ~Albert Camus