“I got it, I got it, I got it!!” My mom buzzed with delight, as she darted in to the room like a wild animal.

“What, What, What,” I replied sarcastically, obviously not overjoyed with what she was about to share.

“They finally got back to me!” My mom continued with animation.

“Who,” I asked in an irritated pitch of voice.
“The IRS, they want me to come down next weekend to fill out the final employment paper work,” she said eagerly.
I thought about what had just happened, and reacted without a word or thought. I looked at my mom and gave her my response, a dull gaze. And that’s when it hit me, hit me like a crazed woman hits her husband when she finds out he’s cheating. I was about to have to make the biggest choice of my life, a choice so big, that it would affect my parents and me forever.

My mother was about to start a new career with the IRS, at their main offices in Austin, Texas. Since Dallas was were we lived and Austin was where she was going to work, my mom decided that she was going to have to move to Hays County, which was about a twenty to thirty minute drive from Austin. With my parents being divorced I was ensnared in between first and second base feeling perplexed and strained as I tried to decide which way to go. I was faced the ultimate nightmare to move with my mom to the countryside of Hays County and start a new life, or stay with my father and all my friends in my hometown of Plano. My father, being the one who has custody, specifically said,

“It’s YOUR choice, do what makes you happy.”
When that short sentence left the tip of his lips, and flowed to my ears, a lot started blazing through my mind, the gears were turning and the pistons were pumping. The tables in my life had completely turned.

I’m more of a person that lives in the future, someone who is further concerted with “then” rather than “now”. So when this dilemma crossed my path I thought about all aspects of my potential decision. I contemplated all the possibilities and opportunities at hand if I took the blue pill, and stayed home, or if I took the red pill and packed my bags. I was stuck and I was sinking into a never ending pit of quick sand. My thoughts raced at two hundred miles an hour.

“Chris… Chris… Chris…” people would repeat over and over, as I daydreamed about the decision I was about to make. I was lost and confused like a stray dog.

“What would you do if you were walking in my shoes,” I would ask my close friends, and siblings with hope. Most of their advice ended up being useless because of their indifference on the topic of which parent they lived with which provided no help. If they did care about whom they resided with, most of the reasons were petty and superficial.
“I picked my mom, cause she lets me stay up late,” one of my, not, so brilliant friends remarked.
“I would want to stay with my dad, because he has all the money”, one ignorant, spoiled girl added.
This whole selection between parents was entirely unreasonable. I felt like I was mountain biking in the woods and came upon a fork in the trail. “Should I go left or right?” I thought as I questioned myself. What would you do?

Even though I hit that speed bump in my life, of having to choose between my mother and my father, I am surprisingly, somewhat grateful that it happened. I gained so much from it, and was taught life long lessons in which I can share, and help others when they hit that dip in the road, and need make a choice. By suffering, with one of the hardest choices, I grew and began to understand that without trial and hard times in life, no one would ever grow. I learned that no matter what ANY situation boils down to you can always choose. There is always a alternative to make, or be made. You may not have the power or authority to control the outcome but you can always make a decision. No matter whom you are, what you’re doing, or where your going in life you should never forgot that YOU always have the strength to choose for your self.