Decisions, Decisions 4/16/2023

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

I find myself in a bit of a predicament today. Here I am with very limited time to get my blog done for the week and my brain is repeatedly informing me that it has no intention of participating in the process.  Oh it is definitely hard at work mind you, it has just decided that getting a blog done falls on the list of importance somewhere down around the letter X if we are listing alphabetically. Therefore, I can make no promises today as to what will come of things.  Now, please note, that while yes some of the goings on in my life currently are just the average run of a mill, wife, mother, employee type of standard. But if I am honest what is really taxing my brain to the point of the tiresome and ironic combination of disturbing dreams as well as insomnia is far more significant.  I suppose I said all that to attempt to assure you that my preoccupation was at least for good reason.

You see, I have always been, for the most part, pretty terrible at decisions.  There have indeed been a few times that I was able to make a firm choice without much hesitation, but usually not only do I have trouble deciding but even when I can I tend to second guess myself to the point of the choice I made may as well have never been because I could very well flip flop on it like an out of water fish.  And this indecision runs the gamut of all scenarios. I remember when my husband and I were on our honeymoon.  We were driving through some part of southern California that I do not exactly remember.  We were having our ever-present argument and that was a battle trying to decide where we should eat.  I do not know how long we drove but it was a fairly significant amount of time with one suggesting something the other was fine with quickly followed by more suggestions that we were also both fine with. I know this sounds like it would make for an easy process, but the thing is neither of us knew enough about these restaurants or is picky enough of an eater to turn anything down. Hence, we agreed to the abnormally large number of options yet never could seem to settle on one.  My husband was so frustrated because I kept insisting that I didn’t care or that it didn’t matter while I was so frustrated that he didn’t seem to grasp that it really and truly didn’t matter to me.  It is funny now, but certainly was not at the time as I remember us yelling at each other as we got out of the car (this is unusual for us) both of us basically angry because the other wouldn’t decide (not an unusual argument for us) in a big hypocritical hullaballoo. Huh, I just remembered where we were. We ended up at a Mexican restaurant and I thought that as we were in Rancho Cucamonga that the possibility of it being tasty should be relatively high since it seemed an authentically named place, so I hoped for authentic food.  I think it must have been as once we were eating we seemed to no longer be angry anymore.

 Speaking of my husband, interestingly enough, he is also involved in one of the cases where I actually did make a sound decision without a single second guess.  He and I had talked about getting married for a while and were actually in the jewelry store. I had already been looking and this store had the ring that I wanted.  I tried it on and liked it and he went ahead and made the purchase.  As they got everything processed and such, I am not sure how I missed him getting the engagement ring (it was a bridal set so it had the wedding band with it) put aside. I don’t remember if he said my name or if he tapped me on the shoulder, but I turned around to see him holding the ring up to me. He then asked me to marry him.  Now, as we had just bought this ring and were in fact standing at the register in the jewelry store still, I thought perhaps he was just joking around since he actually had the ring now.  Thankfully I looked up into his face before I chuckled at what I thought was him kidding around. His eyes were full of tears. He was serious.  This was his proposal. I must add that he said that was the only way he could think of to do it that I wouldn’t expect it and I guess he’s right. I did not. While I was definitely surprised at its delivery, I didn’t have to take a moment to think. I didn’t have to ponder. I knew my answer. I said yes easily, comfortably.  This was an absolute blessing to know the correct decision. That was over ten years ago.  While I may or may not have questioned my sanity in making the decision on occasion, (I kid, mostly) I have not ever questioned whether it was the right one or not.

So here I sit now. I managed to get a blog out of the chaos that is my mind. I will have some major decisions to make for myself and for my family in the coming days. If I’m honest it makes me a tad nauseous. These choices will be hard no matter the route my family has to take.  But I will do it. With prayer and the wisdom of those around me, I will hopefully do the right thing.  This won’t be fun or easy though. I suppose the right thing often isn’t. But man, sure makes me wish I just had to choose where to eat.