It’s pretty much constant that we’re faced with choices in life. Which sweater am I going to wear today? What do I want for lunch? But only occasionally are we faced with life-altering choices and options that could (speaking as a sci fi geek here) potentially create an alternate time line. Most of the time we don’t even realize when we’re at those forks in the roads. They seem like any other minor decision that we encounter in the course of a lifetime, but sometimes you can feel that you’re at a point where things are going to change, and the decisions that you make in the next [period of time] are going to have long-reaching outcomes.
I think I’m there, or approaching it. I may not be standing in the intersection, trying to figure out where I go from here, but I can see that I’m going to have to veer or turn in the not-distant future.
Some of these things are the outcomes of other people’s decisions. My mother moving 30 minutes out of town, for example, requires that I finally give in a buy a car. The truth of the matter is that I can’t go and visit without an immediate escape route, so a car it is. I’m also going to have to move out of my current apartment. My upstairs neighbor’s antics and the inaction of my landlord have cemented that. Perhaps the impending crossroad will tie in, but I get the impression that it’s something a little more immediate. Something that has the potential to grant the unspoken wishes I’ve been making, and maybe some of the ones I’ve said out loud as well.
I can feel a change in the wind.
I actually wish I didn’t, though. It’s one of those things where I find myself worrying about making the wrong decision before a decision has even presented itself. I don’t even know what my forks or crossroads will be, but I’m already concerned that I’ll get it wrong, something I won’t even know for months, maybe even years.
I prefer the ones where you go along in your life in ignorance, only seeing where the key decisions were well after the fact. I don’t think I like this feeling of impending change at my discretion. I’d much rather prefer being surprised.