Choices

We all make choices. Every day, we wake up, we choose what to wear, what to eat for breakfast, what route we will take to school or work, and we just go with it. We make these choices, and we never really think about how they will affect us later on. Some of them will have very little effect on our lives. Some will bring us great joy and change our lives for the better. And of course, there will always be the ones that hurt us in the end. The hardest part about this is that we rarely know where these choices will lead us until we’ve already reached the final destination. Even if we do take the time to think about every possible outcome of a decision, we still won’t know what’s really going to happen. And let’s be real here-- no one actually does that anyways.

So what’s the story? Well, it all started when I was fifteen, and I chose to go out with a guy I knew from school. I don’t even think that I actually liked him. I guess I just liked the fact that he liked me. I’m not going to get into the details of the relationship, but I will say that it was not a healthy one. He was mean, he was controlling, and he was abusive. He was an egotistical jerk who couldn’t take no for an answer. There were SO many red flags -- all of which I ignored. Eventually (and maybe even luckily), things got so bad that I could no longer take it. I was so sick and tired of being his little pawn. We dated for almost a year before I finally built up the courage to end things. But did it stop there? Of course not. We’ll save that story for another day, though. Needless to say, I was very messed up for a very long time. I felt like every ounce of happiness that I had in me had been slowly stripped away over the course of this relationship. I wish I could say that I just bounced back to my normal happy self after ending things, but I can’t. The truth is, I was not myself for a couple of years after this had happened. I barely spoke to anyone, I seldom smiled, I laughed once in a blue moon, and I cried ALL the time because I hated myself so much. I hated the way I looked. I hated the way I felt. But most of all, I hated the fact that I could no longer trust people. For God’s sake, it’s been six years, and I still to this day hate myself every now and then for allowing these things to happen. But guess what? Hating yourself isn’t going to make anything better. In fact, it tends to make things much worse. Eventually, I decided to use all of that negativity to better myself. I didn’t throw it away. I didn’t let it go. I just learned. I learned to not choose boys over friends and family. I learned to not ignore the red flags. But most importantly, I learned that falling in love isn’t worth it if you lose yourself in the end. Would I have preferred to not learn these things the hard way? Absolutely. Would I have thought more about my decision to go out with this guy if I had known that he was such a jerk? Totally. But like I said, even when we do consider the pros and cons of our decisions, we never know which way the table is going to turn. All we can do is take what life throws at us and make the best of it.