DEFINING LIFE CHOICES

Note-Ever wonder how you got to where you are today?


Recently my husband walked through the den while I was watching Jimmy Buffett singing his heart out about the sea, marqueritas, flip flops, beaches, and such.

"That SOB is living the life I should've had," he mumbled as he flopped down on the sofa.

I had to laugh 'cause we all can name someone who is living our dream life. It would be very interesting to know what turn in the road of life, what choices, we took that ultimately led us to where we are today.

After a short study, which involved me sitting with my eyes closed for a few minutes, I can point out several turns that Dr. Phil refers to as defining moments. Since I spent the first part of my life just "going with the flow" usually I just settled for whatever happened to me. Circumstances and other people had way too much control.

The first decision I made, totally my own, was enlisting in the military when I graduated from high school. College wasn't an option in my family. I looked around my hometown and even checked out a couple of jobs. With no experience and no higher education, these were jobs to nowhere. Add in my dad being an alcoholic and the desire to see something of the world, I enlisted in the Navy. One of my aunts paid a visit to the recruiter and gave him a good tongue lashing. The fear was I would, either, see all the men and turn into a whore or I would see a woman with short hair and become gay.

This move probably saved me from the obligatory first marriage, to the childhood boyfriend, and two kids before I was twenty-five. It opened me up to new experiences; my first big love, how to travel alone, and the opportunity to meet different people. I found out I was not going to be happy married to that Yankee boy from New York. The culture shock was too much. Dating a Jewish boy was less jarring. Who would have known a Southern gal and a Jew would have been a pretty good match. But he too was a Yankee, it wouldn't have worked, you can't overlook that difference.

I love bad boys, always have. In the first grade, I was attached to a little boy named Donnie. He was the bad boy of the six year olds. Being dumb as a brick, I had my heart broken many times, but I kept going out and finding myself another bad one. Never dawned on me to take stock of my choices. I was always just so thankful to have a boy on my arm. In the 60's you were no one without a man.

I took nothing jobs after being discharged from the Navy. I took the first one offered, complete with the low pay. Bad choice. And I dated the first man that came along. Bad choice. Now, he wasn't a bad boy, he was a CPA, all his ducks were in a row, he took time to figure out to the penny how much tip to leave when we went out, he wanted to wait to have sex after we were married. He thought out every move, he had rules for everything. I drove him crazy. I drank, partied hard with his friends, and refused to think about what life would be like after the wedding. He bored me to death. And I couldn't imagine having sex with him. His biggest selling point was I would not have to work outside the home. This would've just given me lots of time to find the bad boys and make more bad choices.

It was a complete accident that I married a good guy. But, I didn't know he was a good guy. Imagine my surprise! When I met him he was unemployed, drank all the time, was sarcastic, and acted like he was too cool for this earth. Seemed like just another bad boy. We had the same friends and started partying together. We shared many a Saturday night up to our eyeballs in jungle juice.

I was still engaged to the boring man, and broke up with him on the phone. I was just plain white trash. Who breaks up like that? But that morning I woke up and without anymore thought than I had taken to get engaged, just picked up the phone and broke off the engagement.

Wham, Bam, before I knew it I was involved in a shotgun wedding with a man that was mostly a stranger. With blind dog luck, I got a wonderful husband. I think I'm one of those people who can fall in sewage and come out smelling like a rose.

Flash forward, forty-two years, my life has continued to be a series of choices, some good, some not so good. Perhaps because I did accidentally make the right choice in husbands, I have been sheltered from paying too large a price for the bad ones. I continue to ditty- bop through life. My husband, he must wonder what his life would've been like had he made a different choice in women forty-two years ago. He gets that far away look in his eyes each time Jimmy Buffett sings about the sea, margueritas, flip-flops, beaches and such.



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