Choice

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My ability to choose is the greatest thing I have. 

Though I have been taught this my whole life, I find I still misuse, misunderstand, and neglect this privilege.  I try to give it away.  The problem, I think, is that I don't want to choose my actions from day to day...I want to choose the results from those actions.  I don't want to make choices and hope they bring me happiness...I want to be told which avenues to persue to bring me the things I want from life.  I want to be sure of the outcome before setting my course.  Though this might be a good thing in some situations, I'm not sure I am applying it well in the one I'm in now.

I really want to have a family (though I frequently wonder if I would even be capable of handling thinking about people besides me that much), but I don't want to make a "mistake" in finding my future husband.  I love my family the way it is, step families and all, and I couldn't ask for a better one--but I am terribly afraid of getting divorced someday.  I am paralyzingly occupied with finding the "right one"; so much so, that I think I'm looking for someone else (namely, God) to tell me when I've found the right one.  I think I am hoping that I will meet someone, and come to be so sure about him that it isn't even a question anymore wheather I should marry him or not.  That isn't right.  I need to choose for myself.  Love is as much about faith and work as it is about butterflies and romance. 

Yet, at the same time, I know how difficult it is for me to make good decisions regarding dating relationships.  I have frequently talked myself into relationships that aren't right because I really wish they were.  I don't like being alone, and I really would like that "next phase" of my life to start soon, but I don't want my eagerness to make my decision for me anymore that I want my fear to prevent me from making it.