Sliding Doors

Choices.

Yesterday was a glum day.  Today was a pretty glum day, too.  I've been feeling overly exhausted lately.  Like, breathing-is-too-much-work exhausted.  Yesterday was the worst.  In addition to the exhaustion, my limbs felt like they were made of concrete.  Not fun.

And days like yesterday often multiply.  Like bunnies.  Leading to days on end of glum, gloomy, melancholy.

Yet.  While today was glum, and I am still carrying that excessive exhaustion (waiting on lab results from my doctor to see what's up) I made different choices than I have in the past.

Enter the sliding door analogy, the latest from the brilliant brain of my dietitian.

Sliding doors.  You can see what's on the other side, sometimes.  You know what will happen when you walk through the doors, sometimes.  Sometimes, you even choose to leave the doors closed.  Choose.  Choice.  Everything we do is a choice.  A life changing decision.  Every time we make a decision, we walk through a set of doors.  And every set of doors shapes our lives.  Every single decision we make is a life altering decision.  We just don't know it at the moment.

I'd add that it's how you CHOOSE to react that
matters the most.....

Turns out there was a movie called Sliding Doors that came out in 1998.  It illustrates the idea of sliding doors by sharing two perspectives of the same moment.  The moment where the main character catches the train and what happens after is one perspective.  The moment where she misses the train and what follows is the other.  Her life looks very different in both situations.  Catching the train, walking through those sliding doors, was a life altering choice.

It might not seem like it right now, at least it didn't to me, until my dietitian explained it further.  A few years back, she had tickets to go to a function that she really didn't want to attend.  But she made the choice to go, and in doing so, significantly altered her career in a very positive way.  A chance meeting with an old acquaintance led to a working partnership that to this day is still going strong.

Back to today.  Day two of gloomy me.  A day that was full of sliding doors.  Do I get out of bed or hide under the blankets a little longer?  (I hid under the blankets a bit longer.)  Do I eat a cookie with breakfast or not? (I didn't.)  Do I try to get any work done before I have to leave or not? (I didn't work.)  Do I go home after my day and nap or go for a walk? (I walked.)  Do I stop for frozen yogurt on the way home or run into the grocery store and get some watermelon? (I got watermelon.  And cherries.  And plums.)

They don't seem like big decisions with life changing results.  But in a small way, the act of choosing today was life changing.  I didn't let myself make today a wasted day of gloom.  I made a (semi) conscious choice to not let today turn into a day like yesterday.  I made (for the most part) healthy food choices today.  (I'm especially proud of the watermelon over frozen yogurt choice.)  I didn't let my eating disorder take the driver's seat today, which is usually what happens on these gloomy journeys.  I chose to go for a walk, despite my couch looking exceptionally comfy.  I may have been followed by a cloud of gloom, but instead of crying over the rain, I was grateful it was there to mask tears.

Sliding doors.  Choices.  Decisions.  Maybe one day, when I walk through the door, I'll meet the person of my dreams on the other side, in the pet store, picking up dog food.  That's why I finally realize that whenever I leave the house, I should be ready for anything.  But that's a post for another day.