There’s a running gag in my family. When something goes wrong, I say, “I did everything right.” I say it partly because that’s me, I do things right, it’s not my fault, and partly to pre-empt others making me feel bad, which is also me, eager to please and always hung up on what others think and feeling bad about disappointing.
I got good grades, went to college, got a job, got married, had a son, and I was always nice to everyone. Except maybe to my husband, but that’s a later story.
I did everything right. At this stage, there is not just one road not taken, there are many roads, many forks along the way. I feel that I have generally taken the one more traveled by, though others looking in may think otherwise. I ended up in rural New Jersey from Milan, Italy, that’s maybe not the road more traveled, though not all that exotic either. I’ve done and seen so many things, and I am where I am.
In going back to Italy, I see my past, it’s so visible there, and in some ways I see what my life might have been if I had stayed there. But I didn’t stay, and that’s not my life. I am where I am.
I did an exercise once where I listed the most significant events in my life, and then connected them to the values they represent. By doing that I came up with my values. Unknowing and then knowing, those are the things that guide me, and they are: connection, nurturing, beauty, novelty and independence.
I’m not a planner, I never had tidy goals. I had, however, an unspoken plan in my head. If you live by your values, you move in the right direction. Because it was unspoken even to myself I always thought I was flighty—which is ironic enough, since I did everything right. Though I did right more by expectations than for myself.
I got a fortune cookie just recently that says, “Be prepared to modify your plan.” (The numbers are 23 28 34 36 45 and 9.)
I don’t think so, I don’t think I need to modify my plan, I think my life evolves every day, I am what I’ve become, and I continue to renew myself.
