Detours

I took a different route to work today due to emergency responder exercises going on in the middle of my commute. I guess they have their reasons for choosing the Park Meadows “shopping resort” (their words, not mine) for these drills. I mean, if terrorists what to attack Abercrombie & Fitch, who am I to argue with Allah? What’s the worst thing that could happen? A&F is destroyed.  Now, I can walk through the south end of the mall without my sense of smell being bombarded and possibly permanently damaged by the smell of shitty cologne and sweaty balls wafting from the store. Ultimately, those guys (and gals) are hard at work protecting our high end malls and I had to take a detour.

My live has taken many detours. I believe those different routes are the reason I am who I am today: good, bad and ugly. I think about decisions I regret and wonder what they really mean. Why should I regret anything if those choices got me where I am today?

An obvious detour would be my teenage pregnancy. How would my life be different without having a baby at 19? Would I have gotten married? Would I have had my second child by 21? How about the rather spontaneous choice to leave Boise? I regret that choice everyday of my life. But I could never regret my amazing boys. Why do some decisions that seem so benign (getting drunk and hooking up at a party at 19 years old) lead to such a dramatic life change? Why are other changes that seem so right at the time (moving to Texas from Idaho) lead to daily regrets? I guess we can never truly know where our detours will take us.

So…I have made a MAJOR life decision. As of Tuesday, there is no going back. I can’t turn around on this detour. Where will this road take me? I have to say, this is the scariest part. I am not afraid of anesthesia. I am not afraid of pain. I am not afraid of recovery or my post-op diet. I am afraid of not knowing what’s ahead. This seems like a great change…..but can we really, really ever know if the new route is better than the old?

It seems fitting to me that my surgery will fall on the Equinox as it arrives in Denver (September 27^th). I really am at a crossroads. I choose (by random fate) the day the night is exactly equal to daylight. I am a complete skeptic but part of me believes that day is a good day to take a major detour.