When in doubt, choose the most interesting path?

Our lives are fashioned by our choices. First we make our choices. Then our choices make us. 
                        ~ Anne Frank 

As others have posted, life often throws us curve balls and often we don't see them coming. We probably should. After all, we stepped up to the plate, so a curve ball might be on its way.

The Spousal Unit and I were talking about this the other night. For him, the defining choice in his life was when he got out of the Army, a paratrooper with no real goal in life. He took a chance and applied to a prestigious college for an art scholarship based on the portfolio of his work that he did with no formal training, no art education, and no knowledge of tools (paint, pastels, etc.)

He was accepted and he had a chance to experience a life he might never have known. He ultimately didn't choose that path, but a different one. One that intersected with mine.

My choice happened at about the same time. I left home with my then-husband and went across country to a Big City. We got divorced and he went back home. I stayed. I lived in a converted garage, I made minimum wage, and I knew 6 people in the biggest city I'd ever lived in. I had no car, no savings, and just about enough in the bank for bus fare home.

I stayed. And I learned to live alone, I learned to trust again, and I learned how to be happy. It didn't take another person to make me happy. I could make me happy. Or I could make me miserable. I chose happy.

Then my life intersected in a totally random way with the Spousal Unit (but that's a story for another time, how he literally knocked me off my feet).

So I guess, yes, those choices made us, just as all our choices daily make us. I still choose happy, even on those days when I'm dragging -- because it's too damn easy to choose miserable. The SU and I are still together and I'm still writing even though I've only had modest success.

It's your path. And your path is what you make of it. So you may as well enjoy it.