Everyday Life Choices

1) $5 toward the overdue payments for the roof over my head or $5 for one more pack of nicotine sticks to squelch some stress and assist in keeping my sunny spirit alive.

2) $5 toward the overdue payments for the roof over my head or buy my dogs a bag of food to keep my reason for caring alive.

Unless you've lived with the reality of being a month or two behind in everything that keeps a roof over your head, your choices would probably be different from mine. You may be thinking I should surely apply the $5 bills to my past due rent or utility balances. I should give up my bad, unhealthy habit choices. I should give up my dogs. I should give up anything other than those items absolutely necessary to sustain life.

I want you to know that doing what you think I should do is exactly what I did for a long time. Doing this caused me to fall, falling farther from living than I've ever fallen in my adult life. Never mind that I was currently poverty stricken, more so I'd become poor in spirit. Depression took hold and I could no longer do anything to better myself or my situation.

Worse yet, I no longer cared to do so...until...until I looked at the dog laying beside me and the dog laying at my feet. I cried with them. I apologized to them. I got up, got dressed, selected a small keepsake from my life, got in my car, drove to the nearest pawn shop, sold the item, drove to the nearest convenience store and bought myself a "buy 1 get 1 free" pair of not-my-usual brand of cigarettes, a bag of my dogs' least favorite dog food, and put a few dollars into my gas tank. I returned home, fed my girls, lit a cigarette and proceeded to shower and dress myself for yet another afternoon of job hunting. Ten job applications later I returned home to cook myself yet another packet of ramen noodles. Today's flavor of choice would be chicken.

I settled in front of my computer to do something constructive with another sleepless night. I'd spend it chatting with my family-by-choice, my cyber family of friends. I'd vent a little, write a poem or piece of prose, and I'd surf into websites of the known and the unknown, "spreadin' a bit o' sunshine" into the lives of others. For this is what I do. This is what I've done for years - provide for others the thought that, "There's always a bit o' sunshine to be found peekin' out o' the clouds." And I believe the sunshine has always been, or will one day, be returned to me better than tenfold.

When I tired enough to try to sleep once more, into my bed me and my girls would climb. I'd reach for my stuffed bunny, whisper, sometimes yell, my prayers and fall into dreamland, if I were lucky. A few hours later I would rise and say, "Good morning Lord! What do you have in store for me today?"

Would I be lucky enough for one of yesterday's job queries to have been considered? Would my soon-to-be-turned-off telephone ring with an offer of employment? And if so, would the first paycheck come soon enough to keep the bill collectors at bay? I needed the paycheck; I needed the time. It would take months to catch up but it could be done...IF.

IF my God chooses to permit me to rise again, here are just a few of the "IFs" that I arise to each morning:

1) IF my dogs can stay healthy for another day, they'll be the driving force to keep me hopeful for our future.

2) IF my cable/internet/phone package stays connected for another day, my chosen family will be behind me in working toward my future, and I can give back something to them by the way of sharing myself in my writings and/or guestbook signings and emails.

3) IF my phone could just ring for another day, just maybe a nearby friend or relative would call me, leaving me with the feeling that I am truly loved by someone.

4) IF I can be allowed the luxury of not having to quit smoking cold-turkey today...well, maybe I won't feel like commiting suicide or murder.

5) IF at the end of the day all goes well, I won't be found at a nearby highway exit holding a "Will Work For Food" sign in my hands.

6) And IF, at the end this day, I'm permitted the luxury of my own way of thinking, I'll thank my God for the gift of another day of survival and the gift of hopefulness towards one day living instead of existing.

Yes, during my lifetime I've made many bad choices that helped to bring me to where I am today. I take responsibility for those irresponsible choices. However, I know for a fact that choices made by others impacted my life too and those choices have also helped to bring me to where I am today.

Unless you have walked in the shoes of the poverty stricken, how dare you judge what I should and shouldn't consider a luxury and whether I should be allowed that luxury in my life. Unless you have been poor in spirit, how dare you judge me and my choices. And if you HAVE lived a life of poverty or if you have had your spirit downtrodden, then when you are thinking of me and the choices I should make, I ask you to remember from whence you came.

It would do us all well to keep the following commonly used thoughts foremost in our minds when judging the everyday life choices of others:

"If I should have and I could have, then I would have."

"There, but for the grace of God, go I."

And this one repeated by my Uncle Billy when he heard his son being sternly judged for an unwise choice, "He's doin' the best he can do with what he's got."

I suppose I'll try not to judge my Uncle too harshly for being unable today to apply that same thought towards me and my life choices as well.