Choices

I walked at dusk tonight, along the sidewalks I have walked for almost forty years.  My heart is heavy -- it has been one of those weeks that weigh on your soul.  As I walked I thought how many times through the years I had walked these same streets with deep sadness in my heart.  And I thought about choices -- the choices we make in our lives -- the choices that are often forced upon us by a sense of duty to the ones we love -- our children, our grandchildren.  They never really know the magnitude of the choices we made -- whether to leave or to stay.  They only know that we are here and they are loved, and that is really all they need to know.

But tonight, as I walked, the phrase "cold-hearted bitch" played in my head from a supper conversation with my husband, and I wondered how different things might have been if I had left.  It never seemed that I really had a choice.  But, tonight I wondered, as I walked these familiar streets alone --

Life is a series of choices -- and it seems that so many times I have made the wrong ones.