wrong turn

So many thoughts.
So little time.
Listening to my friends tell their stories has me thinking.

Why are there so many people wondering where they have gone wrong?
Wondering what made them make the wrong decisions.
I hear them.  I listen to them all.
  I am grateful that there are so many that think I am 'stable' enough to tell me their stories.
 I am a fortress.
 I am a hairdresser.
 That says it all.

Wrong decisions.

Don't we all just do the best we can?  On any given day?  This never came with guidelines or an instruction manual.  We learn, listen and behave.  Hopefully for the good.
But we make mistakes.

Sometimes BIG mistakes.

Mistakes that make us cry and ponder what the hell brought us here.
But to learn is the lesson.
How did we get here?  Bad choices, bad decisions.

Maybe not.

I firmly believe that I made a wrong turn in my 20's.  I think about it all the time.  I especially think about it when the cold, stinging reality of Chicago winter kicks me in my ass.

I should have turned left.  But I turned right.

I use to think it was a gigantic  mistake . The wrong turn that I can never change back. 
I have come down this road for far too long.

Can't regret. Wishes, should haves.  Not in my vocabulary.


California is not going anywhere.

 At least for now.
 Maybe it really wasn't apart of my dream.  My desire could have been misread. 
 Maybe my left turn was not suppose to be until later.  After a few chapters had been written.  Maybe it wasn't a wrong turn but a detour.

Life as I know it would not  be the same.

 I am happy that I made the right.  I can always turn left.

Bad decisions, bad choices.  Yes- we have all made a few.

Cannot erase what has been done.
But would we really want to ?
  
Mistakes and bad decisions are merely fortunes in reverse. If we made no mistakes at all, we would not be trying.  Trying is the basics to everything.  Never trying is just not worth living.

Words have been written and moments are only memories.  Reminders that all battle scars are truly beauty marks in disguise.   Don't all of our mistakes and misfortunes bind us together?  Doesn't it give us our character?  Our armour? 

Take your wonder and your worry and seal them away tight.  No hiding behind regret.
There is no shield from the past.
 What is done- is done.

Tomorrow is you're shining opportunity to fix what is not right.  To brighten what is dark.

Turn right if you have to.

Just remember without mistakes and regrets we would have no foundation to grow.

One of my favorite mantra's;

"It is what it is"


Indeed.

I will be on that sunny California beach some day.  Sand beneath my freshly manicured toes.  Children by my side or writing from their far away adventures. Reminiscing about my past.
Mistakes, and bad decisions and all.
Keeping them as reminders close to the surface.  That once again I have a choice. To turn in any direction I WANT TO.
Kissing the cold of the Chicago winters behind me. It may take me longer than I had originally planned.  But hell.  I have nothing but time.

Glorious time.