Living in the Grey

Often times we live our lives in the grey area of black and white situations, 

always afraid of making the big decisions. 

I'm always waiting for someone else to guide me or tell me what to do.
I wait for them to carve me a path so I know where I'm going.

I remember being a kid and playing miniature golf with my dad and I always wanted him to go first so I could watch the path he took, afraid to try and do it on my own.
I needed his unspoken guidance.
I needed that example.

Even today I wait for others' examples to take me where I want to go.
Recently I had a discussion with my sister about things in my life that were frustrating me.
I wanted everything to line up perfectly and I was flustered and angry and I didn't want to have to make any decisions. 

Finally, she got tired of reasoning with me and screamed, 

"Alyssa stop trying to learn from MY mistakes. They are MINE! You have to screw up all by yourself and learn from that. Quit trying to protect yourself from everyone else's stuff."

Ouch.
Well that hurt.
I mean, she wasn't wrong...but it still hurt.

I'm scared of making mistakes.
More importantly, I'm scared of making other people's mistakes.
I didn't want to miss out on college, or fall in love with the wrong person, end up heart-broken, or get married too young, or have children before I was ready.
I was scared of everything.......and why?
Why have I spent my life fearing other people's stuff?

I think the hardest thing in our lives is the constant uncertainty.
We don't want to jump into the wrong things and get hurt, but we also don't want to let go of the wrong things...because that hurts too.
But how do we know?

That's the whole issue, isn't it?
How do we know we're not screwing it up?
How do we know that we picked the right career path or went to the right school?
How do we know we're living in the right town or that we're falling for the right people?
It's that piece of uncertainty that is so terrifying.

One of my favorite books is called The Choice by Nicholas Sparks.
*Spoiler Alert*

**I love it because the entire time you are reading it, you believe she is making a choice between 2 men. You quickly fall in love with Travis Parker and everything he does for her. Towards the end you realize that the choice never meant her choice between men. It was his choice.....
I don't want to completely ruin the book so I'll leave it at that.**

It reminds me that sometimes the choices we think we're making, are much more complicated than we ever imagined. And yet, the choices are clear.
You want it or you don't.

And we just want to live inside that little grey area, wrapped up in a blanket, cocooned by our hopes and dreams, and we never want to leave that space. 

We never want to be decision makers.
We don't want to think that we aimed for the wrong thing or let go of the right one.

Even being the Christian and Positivist that I am, I still frown at the thought that
"everything happens for a reason".
Really?
I had to struggle that hard through school?

I had to meet that guy?

I had to lose that friend?
I had to work that job?

Decision making is hard and there is no map for how it should be.
And there's also no guide book to navigate through the emotions you have along the way.
We just do it.
We muddle through.
We laugh and we cry and we move on.
And somehow we just hope and pray that what we're aiming for is the right thing, and what we let go of, was indeed the wrong thing.

And maybe it's not.
Maybe God is standing up there screaming "ALYSSA WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!"
Maybe I was rude to someone and didn't give them a chance and he's standing up there going 

"Way to go, kid. That was your person."
And maybe not.

Maybe I've made all the right decisions.
I don't really know.

But what I DO know is that I have to stop living in this grey area.
I have to quit piddling around and learn how to make the hard decisions.
Grad school, relationships, friendships, jobs, careers, where to live....
I have to quit asking 12 different people for advice on everything and waiting around for them to make my decisions for me.
I have to learn to let go of things I know don't work.
I have to learn to accept when things are black and white.
I have to quit standing in between what I want and what I have.
And I have to quit fearing those decisions and trust that whatever I decide, is the right decision.

We all want to live in that grey.
We want to set up camp and vacation there where all the possibilities are visible, yet we're still safe inside those lines.
But we don't get to do that.
We don't get to tiptoe on the line because we're afraid of getting hurt or messing up.
We have to cross that barrier anyway.
We have to dive in and hope for the best.
And maybe we fail.
Maybe we jump in the Ocean without a life preserver and we start to drown.
But how will we ever know what that water feels like if we never bothered to jump in?

The only thing that keeps you inside that grey area is yourself.Don't stand in between what you safely have and what you're afraid to do.
It's black and it's white and sometimes you have to choose.
And you have to choose,
All By Yourself.

And sometimes you will get it wrong.
Sometimes you will be in the wrong place and with the wrong people.
And sometimes you're going to get hurt and you're going to shed many tears.
But as a friend of mine recently told me, "You can't be afraid to feel that."

I was watching tv the other day and I heard this quote,
"If you never understand or let yourself feel what it's like to lose a friend, then you'll never fully appreciate what it's like to have one."
The truth in that was riveting.

That goes for life too.
It's okay for you to fail and to take the wrong path once in a while.
It just gives you a greater appreciation for the things in your life that have gone right.
So even if you're making the wrong choices or things seem to be failing,
things still happen for a reason.
People come in and out of our lives, but we learned something from it.
Just like we learn from our mistakes.
So don't be afraid to make a few.

Make many.
All the time.
Don't live in the grey.