On Making Life Choices
“Let life happen to you. Believe me, life is in the right, always.”
Rainer Maria Rilke
I have regrets. Nothing major, no earth shattering “if onlies” but some regrets. Usually those regrets involve things I wish I had done. With all of the decisions and choices I have made in my life, even the bad ones, I have learned something. Granted, I was lucky I survived some of those choices as are all of us. But for the most part I feel like I knew “when to hold them and when to fold them.”
We were walking on the beach in Marina del Rey. It was yet another beautiful sunny day in California. Your Pop pointed out a shell to me. I picked it up and opened it and inside was an engagement ring and a small note that read “Will you marry me?” And the rest is history. We were married at St. Lawrence O’Toole church in Matteson, Illinois. And then we settled in Marina del Rey and eventually in Santa Monica.
Of all the choices I have made in my life I am most proud of the ones that your Pop and I made in our married lives. Once we were married and having children the choices we made affected others and they weren’t always easy. We began to build a life together and we knew these choices would affect the direction of that life for all of us.
The first choice we made was to have all of you. For me that wasn’t much of a decision. I told Pop before I married him that I wanted four children and he didn’t have strong feelings one way or the other. After having two, and feeling totally overwhelmed, Pop asked if maybe I didn’t think two was enough. I stuck to my guns and neither of us has ever regretted having four children. It seemed right and it seemed to fit and we are both very happy we had, by today’s standards, a big family. I can only hope, and I think this is true, that you are all happy you have three brothers.
As we started raising our children jobs came and went and we moved back and forth across the country and we had to make decisions about where to live, who to work for, how much I should work outside the home, what we could give up, what we felt we needed to cling to, and I must say that I think we did well. But that doesn’t mean it was always easy.
I remember very distinctly Pop being very frustrated that he couldn’t move into the next step of his career which would be to direct movies. At the time he was frustrated and told me he didn’t feel like he was left with a choice because he didn’t want to be away from his family for long periods of time. Now, you have to understand that he did in fact have a choice and this is what I love so much about your Pop. He could have gone on to work toward directing movies but it would have meant months at a time away from his family and his home, as well as a more stressful existence. To him, this was not an option because he knew how important it was that he be around not only to help me raise you but to build a relationship with you. He did, indeed have a choice, it’s just that the right choice was so obvious to him based on his values that it felt like there was no choice at all.
When Jake was barely two months old and Zach was just over 2, Pop and I moved the whole family to the East Coast - Annapolis, Maryland. We decided we didn’t want to raise our kids in Los Angeles and liked the thought of living in Maryland which we had visited the previous year. I didn’t have a job right off and with two small children I had to work out some kind of child care situation if I was going to work. I started calling child care centers one right after the other trying to find one I could trust with my two boys. After calling about 20 different places I realized that it wasn’t that any of these places weren’t good enough, it was the fact that I didn’t want anyone else taking care of my children. I found two jobs. One was as a medical transcriptionist in the evenings from 8 pm to 11 pm. With this schedule Pop could take care of Zach and Jake while I was working. The other was with the Center for Maternal Child Health in Annapolis. A good friend named Elizabeth would care for Zach as she had a two year old daughter and they could entertain each other. Jake would go with me to work and sit in a back pack while I did my job. It worked for now. I found a mother’s group and a few close friends, Elizabeth and Gigi. But just as I was settling in and thinking maybe, just maybe this move might work, things began to go downhill. We lasted only six months. Pop’s new job was extremely stressful and we were having financial problems. I clearly remember looking across the dinner table at him one night and thinking to myself “this is what my husband is going to look like when he is 65.” He was 33 at the time. One day he got a call from an old coworker of his, Rob Burton. Rob was working for ILM and they needed someone besides Rob who knew Bill Tondrow’s computer system. Pop was offered a job from Lucasfilm that he couldn’t refuse. A few days later, he got in the car and drove to Northern California to start his career with Industrial Light and Magic. I followed with Zach and Jake a couple of months later. This was an extremely difficult time for us. We were deep in debt having moved three times across the country in five years. Grandma and Grandpa at the time owned a large trailer that they had used to travel around the country. They offered the trailer to us as a temporary and less expensive home in Marin. We lived in the Golden Gate trailer park in Corte Madera for three months before we were able to get an apartment. Pop could barely stand up straight in the trailer and we essentially were living in a parking lot. I had put a small square of fake grass in front of the trailer so that we would have a bit of a “yard”. We were definitely living on the edge. I have never regretted moving to the East Coast. We knew now that although Pop thought he could give up the movie business, he really didn’t want to. We knew we preferred the people the weather and the values of the West Coast. If we had not made that move we would not have learned these things about ourselves.
I know that I ALWAYS have choices – ALWAYS. It might look like I don’t have a choice because I feel there is only one way it could go based on what I value but I ALWAYS have a choice. Even when things happen to me that I have no control over, I choose how to respond. I can choose to be accepting and look for a way to move on or I can choose to be angry and helpless and blame others for my situation.
I could be the poster child for the Nike commercials. My main motto in life is “Just do it”. When I am unhappy with what is going on in my life whether it involves a relationship, my work, my health, I do something about it. One of my biggest pet peeves is someone who complains and whines about a situation but will do nothing to change it. If you hate your job, get a new one. If you don’t like how a relationship is feeling, address the issues or end the relationship. If you aren’t happy with your weight or fitness level, change your habits. We can always make excuses for all of the things we don’t do but it doesn’t get us anywhere. I can stay in a job because it is convenient, has good health insurance, I’ve been there forever, I’m comfortable, it’s flexible etc etc. But if I’m unhappy and hate going to work it will affect every aspect of my life. A change is needed!! I can stay in a toxic relationship because I have known this person forever, I feel sorry for them, I don’t know how to stand up to them, I think I can change them, I believe there is no one better out there etc. etc. But if I find they bring out the worst in me instead of the best then I need to end the relationship. I can choose not to exercise because I don’t have time, I travel too much, I’m too tired, I don’t have the money to join a club etc. etc. But if I have low energy or don’t like my current state of health, then I need to make a change!
In other words, I have learned to quit whining and moaning and complaining and just do it. I do what I have to do to change my situation. I have quit blaming other people for my situation — my boss, my teachers, my significant other, the economy. Even if I have been wronged I choose how to respond to it. Blaming others and remaining stagnant is not going to bring me the life I want for myself. No one is going to be happy all of the time but I sure can have plenty of good days if I set myself up for them in every aspect of my life. Otherwise resentment and anger build and I forget about joy and peace and laughter. Everyone always has the choice. No excuses. Just do it!
We all have values that we live by, things we strongly believe in and things we don’t think rate much importance in the scheme of things. For Pop and I it was our family. We could give up the beautiful house and new cars and luxury vacations knowing that in the end we were doing what would give us a strong and happy family. And that is why I am so proud of our choices. There were many times that I doubted ever so briefly a choice we had made. Would Pop ever be happy having NOT directed movies, should I go back to work so we could provide more material wealth for our children and not be so stressed about finances, should we buy the more beautiful house even though it pushes us to our financial limits, should I spend the money on pre school so my boys won’t be left behind in school? There were a million questions like those and every day a bunch of little decisions and choices. But we followed our gut which is affected by our deeply held beliefs and truisms, and we did just fine.