directionally challenged?

Dearest Handy Girl,
I miss your witty repartee & such. Glad to hear more of the universe will be able to bask in your Handiness. Since you say you are full of answers, here's a question: How does one know one is on the right path? If one has talents and abilities that could lead in different directions, how to know which is the right direction to head in? Heart & Hugs from De the directionally challenged

dear de,

recently, my head got full of possibilities that never before seemed possible. so, tonight i sat on my porch to contemplate the existence of your question, hoping the universe might give me a sign.

my thoughts turned to the last time i looked for a sign, walking through the commons on my way to yoga class, wondering about the challenges i was having with a friend. when i came to the place in the middle where all the paths meet, someone had spray painted the words, but there are so many other paths.

tonight, on my porch, there would be no messages in bottles, no lightning bolts jolting from the sky, no locusts or swarms of bees or murders of crows. tonight, my sign would be channelled to me through the humanoid forms of two young, male, drunk dalhousie university students.

tonight, as i toyed with the meaning of life, of marriage, of commitment, of everything, drunk guy number one asks why i’m sitting all alone. i told him i was contemplating existence. he told me to go with my heart.

drunk guy number two says he’s gonna take a piss, and proceeds to do so on the side of my house. drunk guy number one asks me what there is to contemplate, and i say there are new choices, there are new possibilities and wonderings about what’s behind door number three.

drunk guy number two shakes himself and tells me to listen to his friend. you gotta go with your heart. the two of them try to get me to go drinking with them but my mind turns to the oatmeal cookies that my daughter had baked the day before. they are on a plate in my kitchen. i go with my heart. cookies made by ones daughter are the best cookies ever baked because they have love in them. this was an easy choice: drunk guys or cookies. other decisions are not so easy.

i have a friend. we both look younger than we really are. we were walking in the snow the other day, talking about how we still sometimes get asked for identification in bars, about how my daughter gets handed the wine list and i get looked up one side and down the other. we agreed that the secret to youth, to looking young and feeling young, is doing what we love. how lucky we both are to be able to pull this off. or are we? does luck have anything to do with it, or does it always come down to choice?

our choices determine our future. when faced with choice, the answer has to lead us to being closer to our true self. this doesn't mean there will be things in life that we do not want to do, like washing the buttery batter bowls left behind from bambino's baking binges, but we can make a choice to change our attitude toward our activities.

am i a party animal or a thankful mother? who do i want to be in this situation? i look at the washing of the dishes as a joyful cardiovascular opportunity to shake my booty while grooving to a mika album, which favours heavily against the other choices: being disgruntled about washing dishes that i didn't use, refusing to wash them and reverting to nagging my daughter to do it, or waking up the next day at some frat house in the south end, unable to even remember if there was any joy to be had.

doing what we love and maintaing our integrity will keep us on our path. choices made today will impact future choices and sometimes we need to make mistakes so we can learn, to experience suffering in order to appreciate joy. signs are everywhere but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

here is my handy advice: go with your heart. we have one life to live in the bodies we inhabit and the most important thing is to do what we love, what leads us to joy. we make choices every day, and when we are joyful, we are our best selves. with joy, we are better able to help those around us and be the person we were born to be. good luck, or should i say, good choices...

hg