Eventually Karma Runs Out

"I think that when I die it will be from exhaustion of managing the constant struggle between fate and choice." -Me

Yet again I'm standing at the foot end of a project that once completed could be one of the most crowning achievements of my life. It is going to be so hard. Most people buy a house. I'm salvaging one. It's going to take a long time, a lot of elbow grease and so much blood, sweat, and tears I cringe at the thought of Summer 2012. I want it though, and I want it bad. But why, again, does it have to be so hard!? In a moment of weakness and exasperation Thursday I asked the following question:

"Why does it seem that everything I get or want I have to work ten times harder than most people? I don't mind really, but why can't I be one of those girls that just gets the things she wants?"

And then this was said:

"Eventually Karma runs out and you're given an opportunity to take an easier path."

Wait. What?

Really?

I haven't been able to stop thinking about that line for days. Have there been times like this that passed in my life? Times where an easier path was offered to me and yet I chose to take the harder one? It makes me sick to think that, or realize that, I deliberately chose to make my life more difficult. *Note here that I consider the life I've lived thus far to have been hard and I obviously don't feel as though anything has really been given to me. At least anything that I haven't squandered.

Perhaps it was the time I was offered the chance as a teenager to move in with my father and stepmother. I would have been catapulted from a strenuous stressful childhood into a comfortable life where I could have focused on myself and my goals and would have had people to help me and guide me and encourage me. I chose to stay behind because I felt an extreme need to be with my siblings, in an environment that left me no time to focus on myself.

Perhaps it was the time I was offered the chance to model for The Ford Agency. God only knows the opportunity that would have risen from such a once in a life time offer. Although it was decided for me, I did follow order and stay on the path that was laid out for me by well meaning grandparents. I was only 17 but I still regret not being strong enough to reach for the support of those who were offering to help me take control of my dreams.

Perhaps it was the time I was offered the chance to attend the University of Michigan... a school I no doubt would have had a greater chance of succeeding at considering there was significantly less distraction. I chose instead to follow a boy to the University of Georgia... we broke up three days before classes started. I majored in whiskey. I dropped out before the end of the year.

Perhaps it was the time I chose to abandon responsibility and float through the next 7 years without really making any hard decisions or putting any real effort into taking control of my life and forcing the direction I wanted to go. I basically floated downstream, without a paddle, working only to keep my head above the water.

This past year I've become stronger and more aware of what I expect from myself and my life. I have decided that through the past years I've worked so hard to fulfill goals and dreams and expectations that weren't mine. I've followed the leader down all of the paths that seemed right but actually were all wrong. If I redirect that energy and desire to please others into an energy and desire to please myself,  I'll succeed as a mother and a wife and get what I want for myself too. Then maybe I won't look back on these years and think of them as another hard road leading no where, but a hard road leading to exactly where I want it to.

I'm not going to give up on fate though. I think instead that I'll accept it, take control of it, and direct it rather than continue with the passive aggressive acceptance I've mastered.