Where Would I Be If …

Everyone makes choices.  Our parents make them, our siblings make them, our friends, work colleagues, our bosses, the government, and we make them…

We make thousands of choices a day.

What time will we get up?  What will we eat for breakfast? Will we do home tasks before work? Are we taking lunch to work with us, or will we buy something? What will we make or buy for lunch? What are we going to watch after we’ve eaten the evening meal? What time are we going to bed? Will we scroll or read before putting the light out?

These are some of the most basic daily choices we have and make.  But there are many others that I still need to mention.  Who we choose to be friends with, how we treat people, who we decide to date and then marry and even if we marry anyone.  

Every choice we make determines how our lives will go; what classes we will take for our GCSEs.  Whether we go to college or get a job when we graduate high school, if we choose to go to college, will we get a job or study at University?  What course will we learn?  Which electives will we take?  Which Uni do we go to?  Which job should we apply for afterwards?

A book I read last year as part of a book club was; “Maybe in Another Life’ by Taylor Jenkins Ried, about a group of people and the different trajectories their lives are taken from one moment.

It made me wonder about my life, past, and what-ifs. That mental game used to hurt me and wasn’t helpful when I played it soon after I left my ex, but now, 15 years on, what if?

I used to wonder ‘what if’ until I realised there wasn't anything I could do to change the past.  What happened, happened, and there’s nothing I can do to change it.  It’s done.  Set in stone.  It’s not changing. 

What I can do is learn from the mistakes I’ve made and try to make wiser choices in the future.  I believe there are events mapped out in our lives that will happen, both good and bad, and we can’t do anything to stop them.

That it’s our actions, inactions (which in itself are actions and choices) and our choices that determine which event happens and in which area of our lives, work, family, friends, Church or within our community. My ex found me my previous job, which I’ve mentioned before, and it set off a whole chain of events over the next 15 years that got me here to where I am today.

But is it there that my life could’ve split? Is that where my life could have turned out differently?  I don’t think so.

It goes further back than that and to art college when I was seventeen or eighteen and had a meeting with the course leader.  All the students had one of these to discuss possible colleges and Universities to apply to once we graduated.

My course leader asked me about considering textiles because of my predominantly two-dimensional work. Still, I had so much information and knowledge on fashion designers I would’ve had to start looking for and researching textile designers and artists from scratch.  It seemed like a lot of work to do quickly, so I decided to stick with fashion as I already had all that research and expertise.

I’d been set on fashion as I had files and files of information on designers, et cetera, but my work was all 2-D and not 3-D; 2-D lends itself more to textiles and 3-D to fashion and sculpture.

Looking back, I now know that my teachers would’ve helped me research textile artists and designers, but remember that this was pre-Internet as we know it now.  Information was found in books and magazines, and it looked like it would be so much extra work for me.  To start from scratch to get close to the amount of research and knowledge about textiles that I already had on fashion designers.

So I took the easy way out.  I chose fashion.

I think I should’ve switched to textiles in hindsight, but hindsight isn’t always helpful, is it?  It can help us see what mistakes we made and where we made the wrong choices, but it doesn’t change anything.  What happened still happens; I am where I am because I chose fashion over textiles. 

So, what if I’d chosen to focus on textiles instead of fashion at college?  I might have gone to a different college.  I might have done another course. I might have completed that course, so that I might be working in the textile field now.

Consequently, I may have never met my abusive ex, but I will never know because I never took the other option. I chose my path, which is why I am here now.  I chose to do fashion, I chose not to go to classes, and the repercussion was that I didn't finish my course.  I chose to get a temporary job and ask a guy out, who ended up being my abusive ex.  I then chose to leave him.  

I have no idea where I would be or what my life would look like if I had chosen textiles all those years ago, but I know I wouldn’t be as mentally healthy and healed as I am now.  I am where I am and who I am because of all those things that happened to me when I was with my ex.  Yes, they were horrific to go through, but I’ve believed for many years that things happen for a reason.

Do I regret any of the choices I’ve made?  Sure, there are some questionable hairstyle choices from my younger days, but let's face it, who doesn’t have at least one of those in their past?  I am the happiest and healthiest that I have ever been.  And it’s all due to my choices, including those that didn’t work out for the best for me.  

Over the last few years, I've been looking at my choices and seeing if I can make better ones.  I’ve been looking at what I’m eating, when and why.  Since becoming a Christian, I've changed what music I listen to, what books I read, and what I watch on TV by choosing differently.  This year I’ve begun to look at how I spend my time and choosing to read in bed instead of scrolling on social media.   

We all have that inner voice that nudges us to do or not do certain things, and earlier this year, mine led me to spend a few minutes standing outside in the garden while my cup of tea was brewing.  Even though there was that nudge, choosing to or not to listen to, it are both choices, and I don’t always choose to follow that nudge.  But when I do, wow, I can't believe how much better I feel afterwards!

So why don’t I always follow that nudge?  Because I’m choosing something else that I think is better.

But if it’s Jesus or God who I believe is leading me outside, why do I think I know better than them?  Why do I feel that I know what's better for me?  

Don’t They know me better because they created me?

I must take time with my choices and listen to see if they’re from God or the enemy.  

Some other choices I’ve been making this past month are about what foods I’m eating and portion sizes.  At the beginning of the week, I batch cook some vegetables and tofu for the upcoming week, so I have healthy food on hand and am therefore not going to reach for easy convenience food that’s not as healthy.  It always seems a chore to batch cook all the food up, even though in the grand scheme of a day, it only takes an hour or so, but because I don’t like cooking, it seems like a lot.  I’m always grateful during the week when I have taken that time to prepare the food, though, as it means I don’t need to cook when I get in from work.  

It’s a CHOICE to batch-cook that food.  It’s not something I have to do, but I choose to do it so my evenings are more pleasant when I get in from work, and I don’t have to cook.

Although I may prefer it if some things hadn't happened to me, I can choose how to deal with them.  How I look at them is also a choice, do I look at the ones that didn’t work out as I hoped with regret or do I look at them as a lesson? 

Overall, my choices have led me to become the happiest and healthiest I have ever been.