Decision Season
illustration by Chi-Yun Lau
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood / And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth….”
It’s that time of year. Perhaps it is related to the blossoming of spring, warm weather here in D.C., the sudden feeling of everyone being outside and looking outward for the first time in months. But it’s also what I’ve noticed in myself and with many of those around me–it’s decision season.
A neighbor’s son is deliberating about where to go for college, having been accepted into multiple good schools.
Many colleagues are in the midst of making plans for new ministries to begin this summer and preparing for moves to new towns (myself and my partner included)–so many small and significant decisions involved in all that. Others are deliberating this week about whether or not to continue seeking a new post, with a long list of congregations going into 2nd-round search this year.
For people involved in organizations of many sorts, it is already time to look ahead to fall, to “the next year,” and start planning, taking into account new directions, new goals, and what approaches may need to be left behind or discontinued.
A couple of old friends/girlfriends have surfaced in my life in random and unexpected ways this past week, causing me to wonder: what is she up to now? What is her life like?
We’re approaching graduation season and one of our most beloved babysitters is facing the big questions of “what comes next?”
….All of this just has me thinking about how our life is a constant series of decisions, a very literal Choose-Your-Own-Adventure. We are privileged and lucky if and when we feel like we have more than a few good choices. And all the decision-making can’t help but result in some wondering about “what if…?” What if I’d gone that way, or hadn’t left that relationship, what if I’d chosen to go there for school, or studied this instead of that, professionally…..
For me the reveries keep ending in gratitude for all that is, in my life, and a new determination to savor the present moment. When I step back and survey all the places I could have made some other choice, I return to my life as it is with fresh energy to step into it, to embrace it. I truly believe, as I said to our neighbor’s son, that it’s not where we go to school that ultimately matters, it’s what we do with the time we spend there. Pretty much that’s what I think about life in general. It’s what we make of it. So I come to gratitude, simple affirmation, and contentment. My body, my life, my relationships, this incredible family, our messy home, this complex and amazing vocation. This is the path I’m on, neither the one more or less “traveled by,” but genuinely mine. Embracing that is what has made all the difference.
A Balancing Act
Happy Spring Equinox! (Unless you happen to live in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case I’d like to wish you a delightful Fall Equinox.) The equinox, of course, is the moment of the year when the light and the dark are in perfect balance, with equal parts day and night. Legend has it that on the moment of the spring equinox it is possible to balance an egg on its end. Science would point out that there’s no reason to believe the truth of this legend—it’s not as if gravity is somehow arranged differently on the equinox, but still…the equinox is a time for relating to the whole idea of balance.
Which, Lord knows, we could all use. Most of us are struggling to find the balance between our work life and our home life, the balance between our children’s needs and our own, the balance between activism and acceptance, between being here now and working for a better tomorrow. And those struggles are never going to go away. The only way to find balance is through a constant series of adjustments, tipping the egg ever so slightly this way and that in the vain hope of finding the balance point where everything is right.
It’s never easy, and sometimes it’s heartbreaking. I am thinking of my friend Lisa, who is struggling with finding the balance of when or whether to have her dog put down. Euthanizing a pet is almost always a heart-wrenching decision, and in this case the dog is young, sweet, and seemingly healthy. But the medications which have controlled the dog’s seizures for some time have stopped working, and so at any moment this lovely animal can go from running or playing or snuggling on the couch to cluster seizures that leave her traumatized and cause progressive brain damage. My friend has been diligent in trying to find a solution, and two different vets have agreed that there is none, that the seizures will return, and that they will be fatal, although not for some time down the road. And so Lisa is trying to balance her love for the dog against the burden of 24/7 care for an animal who may be stricken at any time. She is trying to balance the enjoyment the dog gets from every walk, every ride in the car, every scratch behind the ear against the fear and confusion and suffering of seizures that can come at any time. And there isn’t a perfect balance point. There isn’t any way of knowing what exactly is the right thing to do, when exactly is the right time to let go.
Any more than there is a way to know when or whether it is the right time to leave the father of your children, or when or whether it is the right time to tell your young adult child that they have to leave your home, or when or whether to put your frail and fading mother in a nursing home. There is no way to know the right answer, but there is also no way to avoid the decision, since inaction is as much of a choice as action. Doing the right thing, the perfect thing, is as much of a fantasy as balancing an egg.
Which, it turns out, you can do. Any day, not just on the equinox. It takes some patience, and a delicate touch, but it can be done. You start with the determination to balance what seems impossible to balance, and you find a steady base for your balancing act: I don’t want my pet to suffer. My child needs to learn independence. My mother needs care that I can’t give her. And then you lean the egg just the tiniest bit left and right, searching for a sweet spot that will hold: I can give my dog one more perfect day. I can pay for my adult child’s health insurance, and a security deposit on an apartment. I can make sure that mom’s favorite pictures go with her to the home, which will be close enough for me to visit regularly. Never the perfect answer, or at least never an answer that comes with the guarantee that nothing more or better could be done. But an answer, a choice, a balancing place.
The equinox doesn’t offer us the perfect resting spot where we can be assured that all is right. It offers us spring and growth and change. It reminds us that the perfect resolution for an egg is not to balance on its end, but rather to crack open entirely, so that the chick inside can emerge.
