On Choosing Paths

A few months ago, before the world was turned to such a new position, I was struggling with all my wondering on what my own place in the world really was.  If I was a dramatic author from the 19th century I would say it tortured me so, to be contemplating the all the possibilities of future realities of my life and then to be able to get nowhere with it.  Deep thinking is a great blessing, but also can take over I'm not careful to keep it in check. 

I wasn't sure which path to choose. Career-wise. Family-wise. Time-wise. Which of many possible career paths in front of me should I choose.  Should I have more children? That would effect, obviously, which path I choose now.  I have spare time now, what should I be doing with it? Well I haven't chosen a career path, so I cannot make use of my time to prepare for that. And I cannot choose this path until I know if I'm having more children! That would affect everything! I must choose! But I have time today! These hours today! I surely can do something that I love and choose with these hours. But I love so many things. Creativity, learning, time with my kids, chores and upkeep. A truly endless cycle of having no idea where to go with things. It was rough. 

I'm personally grateful that things changed so much with being isolated at home due to the coronavirus. Most of my time was thrown around, my choices stopped being as free and more mandated just by keeping up with the days.  But the heavy things fell away. The thoughts are still there, but not in the forefront of my mind. And a few things have become clearer. My family is wonderful for now. No need to push time.  I have many talents and could be so successful in many things, for now I will serve the Lord and see which path my efforts take me closest to. I have many hobbies and passions, I should see what I can do to start taking them to their next levels.  It will all take time. It will take more courage than I have right now. I can work on that. 

With all the desire in the world to improve, but being a little bit over self-help books that literally tell me everything I KNOW you guys!, I chose to read Anna Karenina. I figured that a novel so famous and so long-lasting could teach me as much about human nature and help me look as deeply at myself as any self-help book would.  I've wanted to read it forever and there's no time like the present.  It's wonderful. 

So today, an excerpt (fully inserted at the bottom of the page) really had me thinking.  Alexei Alexandrovich, Anna Karenina's husband, is realizing for the first time that she might not love him perfectly and solely. "All his life [he] had lived and worked in official spheres, having to do merely with the reflections of life. And every time he had stumbled against life itself he had shrunk away from it. Now he experienced a feeling akin to that of a man who, while calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge, should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and that there is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself -- the bridge, that artificial life in which Alexei Alexandrovich had lived."

I wouldn't say I'm actually anywhere close to where AA is on the levels of not living life to the fullest, but I do know it is something I had to teach myself. I can clearly picture the time as a young adult where I verbalized in my head, "When something comes up in your life that scares you, that makes you want to say no I can't, you will do it. You will make yourself say yes. You will be fine and you will be better for it. It's easy now to do things that scare me. I live MOST of my days to the fullest and am really feeling happy with how I am acting and not being acted upon, fulfilling all my time here.  

But this metaphor. Haven't we all felt this? That moment where we've been doing so well living the life that is normal, that is prescribed, that is common and well thought out and well-accepted, and suddenly everything is turned upside down. Something BIG, and NEW, and out of our control is now right in front of us and it's actually LIFE. And we have no choice but to deal with it. 

I've found that these are usually the times that I'm most grateful for. They are so big and new that at first no matter how you try to comprehend them , you can't, just like Alexei.  All the thoughts, all the energy. Nothing. They are the things that take the most time to ponder, and the longest to heal from. But they have taught me the most. And I'm wondering if we're all in one right now. Or maybe some of us. And maybe others not so. 

But this contemplation that Alexei had was something I'm grateful to have read today. One of those pushes I was grateful for to realize that life is a chasm. It's deep and wild and unpredictable. It can hurt you and right when you think your nice little bridge of a life is going to take you over it, it's broken. I love it now. I'm grateful for this kind of life now. It feels adventurous to me and I like that feeling. I want to do 1000 times more with my days than I do.  I'll tell myself it will be fine, no matter how afraid I am to fail. I'd rather live a life out of the spheres that have already been created, in peace with them no doubt, but in a sphere of my own. I really try to teach my kids that they need to put new things into life and not just do what comes easily or is expected. 

So now contemplate all that and go sit on your couch and have a super productive evening :) 

Much love. Allie 

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Also, you should listen to this book.  Just a little plug for it's amazingness, and it's read by Maggie Gyllenhal on Audible and, wow.  She's perfect for it. 

"When Alexei Alexandrovich had made up his mind that he must have a talk with his wife, it had seemed a very easy and simple matter. But now, when he began to think over the question that had just presented itself, it seemed to him very complicated and difficult. 

Alexei Alexandrovich was not jealous. Jealousy, according to his notions, was an insult to one's wife, and one ought to have confidence in one's wife. Why one ought to have that confidence--that is to say, a complete conviction that his young wife would always love him-- he did not ask himself. But he had never experienced such a lack of confidence, because he had confidence in her, and told himself that he ought to have it. Now, though his conviction that jealousy was a shameful feeling, and that one ought to feel confidence, had not broken down, he still felt that he was standing face to face with something illogical and fatuous, and did not know what ought to be done. Alexei Alexandrovich was standing face to face with life, with the possibility of his wife's loving someone other than himself, and this seemed to him very fatuous and incomprehensible, because it was of the very stuff of life. All his life Alexei Alexandrovich had lived and worked in official spheres, having to do merely with the reflections of life. And every time he had stumbled against life itself he had shrunk away from it. Now he experienced a feeling akin to that of a man who, while calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge, should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and that there is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself -- the bridge, that artificial life in which Alexei Alexandrovich had lived. For the first time the question presented itself to him of the possibility of his wife's loving someone else, and he was horrified at it. 

He did not undress, but walked up and down with his regular tread over the resounding parquet of the dining room, where one lamp was burning; over the carpet of the dark drawing room, in which the light was reflected merely on the big new portrait of himself hanging over the sofa; and across her... ...he halted and said to himself, "Yes, this I must decide and put a stop to; I must express my view of it and my decision." And he turned back again. "But just what shall I express? And what decision?' he would say to himself in the drawing room -- and found no answer. "But, after all," he asked himself before turning to the boudoir, "what has occured? Nothing...." ...he soliloquized as he entered her boudoir; but this dictum, which had always had such weight with him before, had now no weight and no meaning whatsoever.  (He realizes here that if it was enough to get him this far into the thought, it must be something real.) "Yes, I must decide and put a stop to it, and express my views..." And again at the turn in the drawing room he asked himself; "Decide how?" and again he asked inwardly: "What has occurred?" And answered; "Nothing," and recollected [his former thought pattern]. His thoughts, like his body, were describing a complete circle, without alighting upon anything new. He noticed this, rubbed his forehead, and sat down in her boudoir.