Choices

26 years we have been together. How different my life is now from then! If I could have foreseen the future, would I have made the same decisions? Most likely -- my Options all held less promise than the road I chose. Some believe our lives are predestined -- I wish I knew if that were so. Then I would know it was all beyond my Control, not really a Choice at all.

I had so many options! I was only 27 years old then. In retrospect I realize I was very young ... yet I felt so very OLD. The weight of the world was on my shoulders, and I was alone. I didn't know how to cope in the world around me that often seemed so dark and doomed to despair. I couldn't hang on if the Darkness overwhelmed me as it so often threatened to do.

It seemed my only choice was to believe in Love once again somehow - after so many failed relationships, that was not easy to do. I enjoyed men, loved the attention, had fun with my male co-workers ... but it was never enough. No one was really Mine or truly "there" for me.

So many options - why did I pick the Impossible Dream to chase so diligently? When did I realize his love was the one I could never win? Only when I had the option of a Future, one that was stable and held promise could I finally let him go ... I've never forgotten him even now. I wonder if he thinks of me and what we could have had together as often as I do. I'm certain not. Even then, being scorned by the one who shared his name and adored by the one who didn't, he could not recognize the depth of my love. Only later -- TOO late -- did I learn he Knew. He simply chose to hang onto the Past and fight for her ... he got her back but I'll always wonder if he really Won.

Me? I chose the only road I could for self-preservation, convincing myself it was Love. Maybe it was at the beginning - at least a Love of what he could give me, and the relief Security brought to my life at long last. It was enough to see me through the 20's and 30's, even 40's ... by the 50's, Love was gone. Now, and in name only, marriage remains.

It is too late now to start over, or even think of it. I can only Remember and Wish and Dream. There no longer are any Options for a different future; I must simply endure and live out the life I have. I made the Choice over half my lifetime ago now ... I try not to think what the remaining years may hold.

I know what I Hope, and what I Wish for ... if my life is predestined none of my Dreams will ever come true.