Friday, January 20, 2006

Crossroads

For the last week or so I've been thinking about the crossroads we each encounter at some point during our lives. These are the times when we come to a point where the decisions we make will greatly influence our lives for a long time to come.

For instance, in the Spring of 1986 I was pregnant with my youngest child, Jaime. Her father and I had split up for awhile and I took my two older kids, Jeremy and Danielle, to my family's home in Utah to stay for six weeks. The kids' dad and I were really struggling with some major differences in lifestyle choices, ethics, morals, finances, religion -- you name it, we were having problems with it. I desperately wanted to go back home to Seattle where we were living at the time. He didn't want me to come home because he was busy enjoying the single life.

Eventually I did go back home to pick up the pieces of my marriage and try to put it back together, which we were eventually able to do. We stayed together until the year 2000, when we finally divorced for the same basic reasons we had split up so many years before.

But.... what if I had stayed gone and divorced him at that point? What would have happened if I had stayed in Utah? My kids' lives and my life would most likely have been vastly different than it was and has been. Looking back now, all these years later, I know I could have saved myself and my children many years of heartache, sadness and goodness knows what all. There is absolutely no doubt in my life that had I divorced him then, our lives would be vastly better.

But I didn't and I can't go back and change the decisions I made. To be honest, I regret going back because I know what it has cost myself and my children. I went back because I was scared. I didn't know how to be a single mother. I didn't know how I could possibly take care of three small children all by myself and I had absolutely no resources whatsoever. I let my fear of the unknown guide me.

America is at one of those crossroads right now. We can continue to let King George and his court of jesters rule this country, taking away our civil liberties one by one, or we can Impeach him and his cohorts. We the People of the United States of America have a choice to make. Are we going to let fear rule us and run our lives? Or are we going to break out of that fear and do what needs to be done?

Al Gore said in his recent speech that fear drives out reason. He is absolutely right. As Americans, we must push past this fear that so many of us feel. We must follow our instincts and our hearts and do the right thing, even though we may fear what is to come, what might happen if we do. I fear even more what is happening right now and what will continue to happen if we don't fight back.