Sometimes a choice wasn’t all it was made out to be.
It was a talisman of supposed freedom and a chain of forced responsibility, all interwoven into a fabric so dirtied and indestructible that nothing could ever penetrate that nasty, horrific monstrosity that resides upon each and every back.
A release, that’s what they called it, a way to show individuality and worth in a few small choices that had been pre-prepared and set out for everyone – a decision made from rules set out by another. People sometimes believed that we had all the power in the world woven into what we achieve in our decisions, but some options don’t ever occur to everyone, sometimes the only choices that can be made are awful every way you look at it. Sometimes they can ruin people in the worst possible ways.
Sometimes they can ruin you too.
Maybe that’s why good things happen to people, to balance out the injustices and horrors that others decisions have led them too. One healthy, happy and prosperous family for a homeless man on the street. One saved child for one who would be abused until they could finally escape. One friendship thriving for one facing down the barrel of a blisteringly cold, metal revolver…
…Yes, a choice is our own to make, only having them in the first place is forced us upon us haphazardly and against our will, guiding us down roads that should forever be left abandoned. Those roads are unfortunately so much easier to meander down towards than the ones glowing with the beauty of light.
My road was never light or even particularly dark. It was patched, blotched and speckled with equal amounts of both bright and dark, never swaying one way or another; just lying in the middle firmly and being almost solely absent of anything incredible or unfathomably despicable. It wasn’t exiting – my life – but I was content and I was somewhat happy. But you cant stay in that shade of grey forever. No matter how hard you try, or don’t, you will always be dragged one way or another – coaxed and coerced into a life you may never want, towards person you should never have met and into becoming someone you could only recognise if you put every morsel of effort into breaking down what you had become.
But, sometimes even after the horrors, a crack would appear in the darkened walls that engulfed your road and sometimes, you take that step to grasp it and pull yourself through to the other side. You’re not healed in the slightest, not anywhere close to being remotely okay – but you try, my god do you try and maybe you succeed, maybe you don’t; either way you know that the outcome was yours and yours only that led you to this new road; new life.
And life is incredibly precious, wonderful and unique, just as it is fragile, breakable and easily destroyed. It is up to us how we see it and down to each and every soul to preserve and take care of this truly beautiful mystery that propels our limbs, fires our neurons to and from our brain and keeps our heart beating steadily day after day after day.
Yes, a road may not be pleasant, but it’s important to remember it can be survived and that there is always hope where many claim to find none – that maybe one day the walls that enclose our road, will indeed crack and blister with an unforgiving and all consuming, brilliant light.
Then whatever road you take is once again your choice… even if it’s not truly the one you wished to have made in the first place.
A choice was never all it was made about to be.
But it was there.
It could be bad, good or not even a choice at all.
But at least it was there.
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