Turn Left.

Feels like another “toodling along” day. I actually don’t know if that’s a known phrase or word, or if my mom made it up – but, generally, I suppose people know what I mean if it’s not. Or, for all I know, it’s a well-known high-fallutin’ word. … Yeah, I just wanted to write “fallutin.”

Feeling generally optimistic today, or rather a lack of pessimism, so that’s a good start, and a decent change. I’ve been presented with the opportunity to think about choice, a few times in the last 24-48 hours or so. Particularly, the idea that I have the opportunity to choose my perspective. And more than that, I have the choice to do a lot of damn things.

Basically, I’ve been given the power of choice, and I’m recognizing what might be better ways of using that grand choice. That privilege of choice.

I was talking with a friend yesterday, and she was telling me about some places where she was feeling hopeless, and I offered that she does have a choice here. That we are indeed at places where we both can choose to turn right, and go down the all too familiar well worn path of despair, crumbs, victimhood – all the way back to the dry well. Well is dry. It always has been. But sometimes I, and she, like to see if maybe today there’s just one drop I can squeeze out from it. Nope. That well is dry, but I have a choice to still go there if I want.

Or… I can choose a different way. A different way to look, approach, feel, be. Think. I believe part of this is owning that mantle of adulthood – recognizing that we have the power of choice, and are in some ways the steward of our own fates. Sure, Fate sometimes intervenes, Divine intervention happens, and sometimes we are stripped of choice, but, for the most part, nearly everything in my life at the moment, and how I choose to see or hold it, is a choice. I have chosen to engage in despair. I have chosen to stay small. I have chosen to reject responsibility, and then I get to complain about my meager finances. Or romances.

It’s not all as simple as turning on a light switch, but sort of, sometimes, it is. It needn’t be some massive, monolithic effort, or commitment; sometimes, it seems to me now, it’s just a simple shrug, and a turn left. Not so heavy, or burdensome. Not so daunting or scary. Just a left turn. Toward something … not new. It’s not new – I mean, it is and it isn’t. I don’t quite know (obviously) all that’s down a path of Left, but I’m familiar enough with occasionally taking that route that I do know some of the milemarkers.

Peace. Calm. A sense of well-being. These are quite obvious particularly in contrast to the milemarkers on the way to the dry well.

Today, I can choose. I have a choice to see myself roundly, to see my life roundly. I can choose today to notice the assets, to notice where I have a choice – a choice to write my teaching resume. A choice to send it. A choice to decide whether I want to do some live drawing modeling tomorrow, or if I’m feeling a little too tender for that.

I have a choice to buy eggs, instead of eat popcorn for dinner. I have a choice to make a nutritious meal – like the one I’m eating now ;) I have a choice to dress properly today, in a way that makes me feel professional, but myself – not a drone or clone, but not defiant. That may seem like a “silly” thing to think of as a choice, but it’s not.

Last Tuesday, to my second day back to the temp job, I dressed in all black, with my black leather jacket and my fuck you attitude of, I can’t believe that I have to do this work in this office, sitting for all these hours… yadda yadda, fuck you, I’m wearing black. ! Yes, That was a choice. Luckily, that was also the same day I had my wonderful conversation with a friend about whether or not I want to be an adult.

So, today, I can wear something that says, I’m still me, with my quirks and style, but yes, I respect this workplace, and am grateful to be here.

I also have the choice to pack my lunch instead of buy it. To meet my friends later instead of isolate. And to remember to breathe.

I have a lot of choices today. And the well is still dry.