Math and music are as magical to me as poetry, elves and unicorns.  As a youth this meant conversation about my future included these three things, a statement that I was gifted in all areas so could easily achieve academically anything I wanted, a question about what I wanted to do or be, and then a frowning reference to being practical since I was, after all, a girl and poor so wanting to be a Doctor or Nurse should have a better back up plan.

With that option gone, I could never decide “what I wanted most” and so slid from one  opportunity to another, mostly in the fields of arts and communications, with a side trip into the military and hard science, and raised my sons holding multiple jobs at a time, being who each job wanted, writing, dressing, etc. for the part; not so much choosing as becoming what was chosen for me. Mind you I am not complaining, I have had incredible opportunites and expereinces.

At the turn of the century, after some years of therapy and a few Oprah inspired journaling experiements, I started making choices based on what I liked and who I wanted to be and I became a Nurse.  I love it.

But now I have decided with my new lease on life to finally go back to college, be enrolled by 2013 and get my BS (Okay, to all you seniors out there who applied for and got into college, you rock, this process is tougher than I thought!) and I am trying to choose my major. I have committed to myself that whatever I choose, I will finish.  I have narrowed it down to three possible degrees.

I will never get a BS, if I don’t have a concrete goal and stick with it, but I really don’t like choosing. There are so many classes I want to take, so many areas I am interested in and enjoy learning about, I want to take them all. Unfortunately that has been my approach to college which is why I have so many credit hours and no degree. Not making that mistake again. I will pick a major, plan my classes and stick to the plan. Trying to grab everything offered, leaves me in the end with nothing.

Remember the Aesop Fable about the dog and the bone? So I am choosing, and applying, first at ASU, then if rejected there, I will try other options, I will keep you posted on the progress. Anyway, I find myself resenting the need to choose.

I like it even less in my daily life when I must choose where to spend energy, money, time.  My favorite game of imagination is “If I had all the money and time I needed…” If something comes up repeatedly in this dreaming exercise I add it to my bucket list and find ways to make it happen.  How to make it happen is to accumulate appropriate choices.

Yup, just like in a video game, the outcome is dependent on my choices. How I approach each encounter determines what weapons I arrive with at the Big Boss of my dream.  Utilizing John Scalzi’s recent incredibly humorous (and accurate) metaphor http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/ , I get to play on a fairly low difficulty setting since I am an American born white female. Although I do know I do not play at the easy setting since I am now past 50, not attractive, not married, and still female,  the setting was certainly much higher while still a single mom with kids at home.

Ways to gear up for this quest I am attempting includes maximizing my physical well-being with continued exercise and weight loss, managing my chronic pain without pharmaceuticals, making financial and professional decisions with the long range goals in mind, and finally sometimes saying no to things I really, really want to do that are side quests or repeats or just beyond the energy levels of my current character.

I am having to face one of those decisions today. I had two graduations and attendance at a music performance planned for today, but life had different plans in mind. So I won’t be leaving my house after all today. I will instead stay home and regenerate so I can do Bootcamp in the morning, visit with old friends at Phoenix Comicon this week-end, all while still fulfilling the most important quest this week-end that is my job as a nurse.

I am choosing success, but I don’t actually have to like it at the moment.