4 AM : Awake and frustrated...

For the last two years I’ve had the same choice raise it’s frustrating head over and over again. I kept making the same decision, giving the same answer, and each time the choice faded into the background for a while. I regretted my decision more and more each time, thinking ‘this is 80% of a good thing’. A good thing I really, really want. Frequently enough to notice, each time I declined, circumstances tended to cough up a concrete example of why it was still not a good idea. Those examples helped, but didn't completely quiet those persistent whispers somewhere behind my eyes that I might be making a mistake. It felt like a duel. I kept standing, with my back to the decision, not walking away, but not turning to face it and take the chance either. I kept telling myself that the 20% that was left was definitely made up of deal breakers, that if I did an about-face and turned around, that the result would be a bullet to the chest. I’d come to the conclusion that all I could do was to walk away from it, completely, and that it is going to hurt to leave it behind…a LOT. I’d muttered to myself. I’d reassessed priorities. I’d doubted and questioned things I thought were rock solid. I told myself I was done screaming my frustrations into my pillow.

Suddenly it looks like the choice will be a non-issue and will likely be closing the door all on its own. I had gotten to the point that I was angry I hadn’t been able to let the idea of ‘maybe’ go. I had also gotten to the point that I wondered if that 20% wasn’t made up more of my fears than real deal breakers. For the last two weeks ‘What might have been’ has kept popping its head in the door and asking if I’m sure… until I want to gag it, weight it with a cinderblock, and walk it off the nearest short pier. I furiously and quite suddenly wanted to think, that if given the choice again, I’d have trussed up that choice right along with my doubts when prepping that cinder block. I wanted to believe that I might have just stood there, reveled in the splash, and gleefully watch for the last bubbles to surface. Instead the last few weeks have hammered home that its more likely that I will stand there all right, still clinging to ‘I think it’s a bad idea’, watching it disappear, and will probably want to sob. Dirt, I hate this feeling.