choosing game

     “I’ve been thinking a lot about choice lately,” I told Daniel while we were sitting in the tree by the pond.  I always sit by the pond, it had sort of become my spot. I told him that. It's where I come to think. Irene showed me this place. It was where she used to come to think. And we would come here together, and feed the ducks or sit on the bridge and swing our feet out over the edge.

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     Daniel frowned, I don’t think he understood. “I’ve just been thinking a lot about choice, I guess,” I repeated. He turned to me then and I felt his shoe brush my leg. “How do we know if we make the right choice?”

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     Daniel and I had been dating for almost two months at the time. I’m not exactly sure why I brought him to the pond. I’m not exactly sure why I mentioned that thing about choice. It could have been the fact that I possess the exasperating, unlucky tendency to take perfectly good moments and ruin them. But the thought had been on my mind lately; the concept of choice, and we had sat there in silence and the silence begged me to say something. So I made a choice.

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     We had only been together for a short while, so he was blissfully unaware of what exactly I could be referring to. The choices I’ve made over my previous years of college. Choices that had resulted in regret, dissatisfaction, and disillusionment.

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     “I think the right choice is inherently the one you make,” he said, breaking the silence. I could tell that he had thought about it more. “Every choice we make is the right choice, because our choices make us who we are.”

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     I wasn’t sure I agreed with this, but I admired the thoughtfulness in his answer. He explained to me that he understood what I meant and that he had had similar thoughts before. “But you can’t live your life in regret,” he said, “you’ll never move forward if you keep dwelling on the past.”

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     “But what if your life could have been better if you made a different set of choices?” I asked. “Then it wouldn’t be your life.” he said and we sat there for a while.

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     I looked out at the pond, I thought of Irene. Irene was my best friend. She died about a year ago. A few months before I met Daniel, I attended a celebration of life for Irene. During the ceremony, I was met by the familiar faces of her old friends. I had bumped into her friend Owen at the ceremony. Owen was one of Irene’s friends from her Art History class. Talking to him was awkward, considering everything that had happened, and all the time that went by since we had last seen each other. I offhandedly had told him we should catch up more sometime in an effort to be polite, not intending on actually doing anything. Yet, a week later, I stared at his number in my phone and made a choice to reach out to him.

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     This began what would become our weekly meetings. Owen would come over to my apartment once a week, and we would talk about Irene, how her death had affected us and how we were trying to move on and get through college. Owen was an Art History major and was at the time applying for jobs in museums for after college. Talking to him made me realize that I was also interested in museum work, and that it had been something I actually wanted to pursue.

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     In addition to my English major, I was also a legal studies major at the time. I had taken two years of Latin for my Legal Studies major, but in a bolt of inspiration, after one of me and Owen’s conversations,  I decided to drop Legal Studies, choosing to pursue a double major in Classics instead. Classics was always something that had peaked my interest, and was similar to the content Owen was studying in Art History. I had decided that, like Owen, I also wanted to work in a museum.

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     It was several months later when I dug up old text messages between me and Irene, with her urging me to pursue a secondary major in Classics, an actual interest of mine, unlike law.

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     “Do you like it?” she wrote.

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     “Yeah I guess”

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     “Then do it”

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     I had realized that I needed to take Irene’s advice more often. “Then do it.” If I like something, I just have to do it. I made the choice to double major in classics.

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     Recently when talking to Owen, who now works at an art museum, told me that he is going to apply to grad school for creative writing, something that seemed to be inspired by my English major. By making the choice to reconnect with Owen, I was able to make one of my closest friends, finding someone who is both an academic and personal influence on my life. Looking back at college, I realize that I have made it to where I am based off of all the choices I have made here. I chose to come to UMass Amherst, I chose to become friends with Irene, and I chose to become friends with Owen. I chose to date Daniel who I have discussed all these choices with and who challenges me and my perspectives helping me to see a clearer future for myself.

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     I genuinely believe that the people I chose to surround myself with in college impacted my academic endeavors and motivated me positively towards a tangible, attainable future. I am inspired to study Classics, history, and art, exploring my artistic side by beginning to think about careers in a museum. I am also inspired by my friends to continue writing. I am inspired to share my stories with others, and to write about the lives of my friends, who have inspired me so much, and who I want to inspire others as well.