Today I was on campus for a meeting and the faculty dining hall was full, so we went to the food court. I was amazed at the choices that are available for students at mealtime. For a single price, the students were allowed to eat whatever they wanted in whatever quantity they wanted. It looked to me like a recipe for disaster for anyone without a will of iron. Talk about packing on the freshman five. Eating those foods, in large quantities, for four years, could do real damage without careful planning and a bit of self-control.
Something else struck me, as well. Here were all these under twenty-ones, with their entire lives in front of them. They have a huge buffet of choices and possibilities available to them and they get to pick what suits them and what will help them to fulfill their dreams. Along with choice comes the sometimes heavy responsibility of making good decisions because their choices will shape their future. I felt a little nostalgic for the time when everything was in front of me and the top of my hourglass had all the sand. I thought about the decisions I had made and how they had shaped the life I am living.
I'm not a person with a ton of regrets. I look back at the time when I was finishing college and I think that I was just too young to be making such monumental decisions about my life. But that's what it means to grow up - to make my choices and then live with the consequence of what I choose. I am pleased with the direction my life has taken me. I love my life. I'm not young chronologically, but I am young in heart and spirit. I may not have my whole life in front of me the way I did when I was a kid, but the life I'm living feels whole and complete. Fibro is a blip on my timeline. It's a part of all the rest of who I am, what I do and how I relate to others. I am living my life with the same sense of hope and possibility as those young folks in the food court and I've got my own buffet of choices laid out in front of me.
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