AT A CROSSROADS
Recent events made me look back in the past and re-examine my choices. I have no regrets. Yesterday’s loss was well worth today’s gain. My only regret’s been inflicting unnecessary guilt and grief to my loved ones. If I’d done it any other way, it could’ve been worse. Change, loss, pain — all were a given–inevitable. If I’d do it all over again, marriage would still be out of the question. Blessed am I who have a family and real friends who stood by me — then and now. We’ve drifted apart, lost touch and lost connections with our old folks back home. Through the passing of time, we slowly find our way back into each others’ lives, even just a passing ‘hello, old friend’ or ‘hi, old family’ make a huge difference. Sometimes, “I’m sorry” isn’t necessary, when your actions speak how truly sorry you are. We are only human… born to make mistakes. We fall down, and rise to our feet again.
I made a choice. I lived, and am living the consequences of my past decisions. Even if I could, I would not re-edit my life.
–Published in TF Newsmag (September 2008 issue)
THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED BY SINGLE MOTHERHOOD
A nineteen year-old sealed her Fate the day she took the road to Untruth. It had taken almost a decade to change course and follow the path of Truth…when the revelation on the identity of her son’s father came. The difficult journey was then shared with the family, after nine long years of keeping them in the dark.
On a wounded teen-ager’s mind, who’s on the family way, what looms large is Fear. Uncertainties muddling the mind; doubts clouding decisions. It’s terribly wrong to get pregnant at that point, another graver wrong move (i.e., marriage) won’t make it right. Keeping the child’s father uninvolved by not disclosing his identity was her way of letting him go… “Hey, pal, I’m saving your ass. Go run and make your own destiny, I’m creating mine. You go your way, I’ll go mine. My fears are mirrored in your eyes, it won’t do us any good to share the
same scary road. I’ll take the difficult one, you travel light. I
don’t want you to resent me the rest of your life for taking away your freedom. We both got loads of growing up to
do, on our own.” They moved on, on different directions, moving further and further apart.
Several years later, he thanked me for that — his freedom. Untruth Road was the route to Single Motherhood. Road Truth led to Marriage Highway. The former weighed heavier on my scale, thus began my journey as a single mom. From that fork in the road, there followed countless forks up ahead, making it fatally easy to get lost. And completely lost I had been, blindingly seeking my way on darkened alleys, like a rat in a maze. One wrong turn after one wrong sharper turn, followed by another, until the horizon came to view. The times I could no longer walk, I crawled.
We all come to a fork in the road at some point, or many points, in our lives. What we choose on that road will determine the kind of person we will become. What we chose on that certain point was influenced by what we had been through in the past, how people and life had treated us, before we came to that particular fork in the road. Whichever way
we choose, if we have a purpose, the decision could utterly,
irrevocably, completely change us. There is no turning back. We can keep changing our paths though, until we get through to the right one.
