the paradox of choice

my home is the mid-atlantic. my heart is in new orleans. my family is spread throughout the american southeast. my friends are too.

my friends, i have no idea what i want to happen in the next year.

well, that's not entirely accurate. i know the high-level stuff. i know who i want to be with. i know the kind of job i want to have. i even, after lo these many years, have settled on a hair color that i love. (i know, right? important considerations.) but now that my future is wide open, i have nothing but a slate of permutations of this construction. so many possibilities.

choice is something americans love. it's practically our civic religion (well, besides football). go to a grocery store and notice how you'll have 47 different kinds of strawberry jelly from which to select. but when it comes to this, i am kind of at a loss. i've had a very specific path to follow for my entire adult life. now that i'm the captain of my soul, and it's just me making the choice, and i'm the only person whose interests and cares matter? well, damn. what do i do now?

these things will work themselves out. it's nowhere near a crisis. in fact, it's an embarrassment of riches, brought to me by, not to brag or anything, my intellectual achievements and my ability to rise above emotional strife and take charge of my life. so while this is somewhat intimidating, it's also insanely liberating.

in the immortal words of lady gaga, i'm a free bitch, baby. if this sort of confusion is the downside to that, well, i say bring it on. i'll take that over what i've been stuck in any day of the week.