Five Best Decisions I've Ever Made

As I whizzed past houses, barns and fields of cows that evening in my mad rush to my parents' home in north Georgia, the neural connections in my brain were busy at work. They moved in tune with the Postal Service beats that thumped through my car speakers. I thought a lot about life; where I am, where I've come from and where it is I think I'm going. Sometimes I make bad decisions, like that time I decided to start smoking. Or like the time I thought it would be a good idea to skip my curfew in high school because I took my mother to be understanding. I know what you're thinking, but don't worry, I have had some bright moments, and here they are:


1. That time I kicked Billy French in the nuts in kindergarten. But here's what happened for real before you think I'm a bitch of a man hater: I was going across the monkey bars, minding my own damn business. Billy walked up and started asking me a bunch of questions. So, I stopped moneky barring and started swining on the bars and was talking to him. He kept getting closer and closer to me as I was talking. Eventually, he got mad at something I was saying and grabbed my crotch, right up under my dress, stuck his dirty hand right up my skirt. I struggled and eventually fell off the monkey bars, landing on his arm. I stood up looked him in the face, he was laughing. I'll never forget the way he was laughing at my anger and my embarassment. My response: I kicked him directly in the nuts. He cried, I got in trouble but he never came near me again. I think that's when I subconsciously knew I did not like anti-feminist men, or at least fresh six year old boys.


2. Then in high school, before I made that decision to take up an unnecessary nictoine addiction, I was a member of an elite group of musicians. By elite, I mean, we were arrogant stringed instrument artists who thought the world was at our talented fingertips. Then our orchestra director moved to Ohio to chase her booty-chasing husband. I dropped out of chamber ensemble and began running long distance races. Despite my inability to run efficiently, as my coach told me, I got down to a size six, maintained a consistent tan throughout the year, learned to appreciate the power of spandex and weighed 120 pounds for about 3 years. I was in the best shape of my life both mentally and physically.



3. At the tender age of thirteen, I was suicidal and optimistic all at the same time. I fell in love with the mountains of Tennessee and developed aspirations of moving there some day to escape my family. My dream began to pan out as reality right before I turned eighteen, when I received an acceptance letter to Sewanee: The University of the South, a liberal arts university on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee just north of the Alabama/Tennessee state line. I accepted the invitation to go to school there. I was the only student from my graduating class to choose to go to school out of state, and it was probably the best decision of my life, thus far.


4. While attending school at Sewanee, I met a community of individuals who were both talented, intelligent, spiritual and just plain fun. Within that community, I came to know who I am on many different levels. I traveled with them, drank and ate with them, cried with them, napped with them, joked with them, and of course, slept with them. It was through this community that I came to know myself as a lesbian, and it was through this community that I came out not only in terms of my sexual orientation but as a person. This was probably the third best decision of my life. The second best is below.


5. Breaking out of the community described in number 4 allowed me to come into myself fully. Breaking up with my girlfriend who I met in that community, breaking unhealthy ties to people who had mingled their identities with my own, and severing ties to the community that was forcing boundaries on my growth. A community that needed me, but a community for which I no longer required support, as the support had transformed into hindrance. In that breaking out, I have found a handful of people with which I choose to interact, support and grow. I am often lonely, but as one of them says, "it is within our fear that we learn to know ourselves, maintain our identities and grow exponentially." I choose myself.