I used to love reading Choose Your Own Adventure books. I would take them on car trips and spend the time going through the various iterations of the story, looking for that one perfect ending or pathway.
These stories were the ultimate in co-creation for my preteen mind. I got to choose the pathway, discover the twists in my decisions and reach a unique conclusion. At least, that’s what I did in the beginning.
I continued to enjoy these books, but I found myself increasingly anxious about my decisions. The unknown future ramifications of my past choices coming back to haunt me when the drama grew.
So, instead of winding my way through a singular pathway, I started to read ahead. Anxiety overwhelmed curiosity and surprise. Instead of accepting the course before me, I started reading the outcomes of all of the decisions and then choosing from the next outcome what my answer would be to the question before me.
I thought I was being smart, looking back I was trying to be right. I was trying to manipulate the story so that I would come out on top every time. Today, I see that pattern repeating in various places. I only write about what I know. I begin many of my stories with the ending in mind. I struggle with the presence of the present and being open to allowing things to unfold in front of me.
In short, I want to control the story and its outcomes so that I come out looking good in the end.
I’m trying to acknowledge that part of myself more and more these days. The part that wants to feel safe and secure. The part that wants people to see me, and the story I live, only positively. That desire for the perfect pathway through a story often causes more pain than progress.
Originally, this post was about how we view sacred texts and the multiplicity of interpretations that we can make based on our experiences and courage. But, if I stay present to my story, I’ll have to save that adventure for later.
Instead, I’m going to stick with the adventure before me, rather than cheating ahead and having an ending in mind from the beginning.
I need to say that I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time. What I mean by that is that I don’t know how my life fits together at this moment. It’s like being in the middle of a Choose Your Own Adventure book. I’ve made some decisions that have gotten me to this point. Some of them have been courageous, others cowardly, most sit in between that space.
Those decisions have brought into my life experiences and expertise, family and friends, joy and heartache. They’ve led me to this current point in life, which is where all past roads lead. To that singular moment when the next decision, choice, possibility, limitation, idea, and anxiety reside.
And, it sits there until a choice is made and then added to woodpile of previous decisions to inform the next one. More so than a simple choice in a vacuum, what gets thrown in that woodpile is guilt, acceptance, grief, shame, contentment, peace, and myriad (one of my favorite words) other feelings emotions and states of being.
A choice is never devoid of these things. The log thrown on the woodpile is branded with these emotional weights and words and ways of being. In my mind, I’m stacking these neatly in a row to burn at a later date (as though I could really ever be rid of a story). In reality, it’s a dumpster full of cracked and broken and rotting stories that tumble out of its container from time to time.
And, when they tumble, they wreak havoc on a day (week, month, etc.). The choices not made, the decisions that impacted others, the joys and anxieties and guilts and shames that fester underneath the façade I present, all crash down and make the present moment feel tenuous at best. In many of those moments it feels as though any decision derails the story, and I want to retreat to safety, to rise above the mess, to be competent and capable.
I think that’s what we’re often looking for though; a little bit of competence, an agreed upon capability, some corroboration that we’re doing okay. That’s why we seek out others who affirm us, for good or for ill. We want to feel as though we belong, despite the chaotic story-pile in our past.
We want to believe that we’re not alone in our deliberations and potential destination.
We want to feel as though someone travels with us and calls us back in when we go astray.
We want to know that our shame doesn’t get the last word, that those rotten festering stories aren’t the sum of us, but often an aberration.
It’s hard to be courageous without these things. It’s damn near impossible to take risks and be bold and live meaningfully without good relationships and good people alongside us.
I’m torn at this moment, in this free-flowing exercise. Part of me knows I could shift the story to theology and care, which is where my expertise lives. The other part says that maybe this is enough.
I think the latter part is the courageous choice today. It’s the small voice that says it’s okay for you to take this where you need it to go. It’s the one that tells me I don’t have to choose the adventure for you. That you’re perfectly capable of doing so yourself and my job is to trust that you will.