Choice

I'll be the first to admit that some times I judge someone based on their outward appearance: how they look, act, speak, and carry themselves. Any honest person would probably agree with me when I say I think we all do. However, I'll also freely admit that even when I take chances and opportunities, take time and make effort to get to know someone, sometimes...hopefully not many times, I end up deciding how I feel about someone, for good or ill, long before I actually know someone.

Knowing someone is such a relative and subjective qualification. Who is to say how much time you must spend or how long you need to have known someone before you can really "know" them? Is there a written rule? Is it somehow ingrained into everyone's psyche except mine? I don't believe so. It's a Choice. I decide...and because I choose, I think of all the times when I wished for one more day, one more conversation, one more moment in the hopes that I could impart some knowledge of myself to someone else, as if it'd make a difference. It is why I often find myself choosing to spend one more moment, one more conversation, one more day to learn that little bit more about someone because it does make a difference...

I make the choice to open my mind to things I never once was able to fathom - to new ideas, different circumstances, infinite possibilities and objectivity I didn't know before. The choice to accept someone for who they are, aware of where they've been and what they've been through, aware that every step they've tread has led them to the person I see before me. The choice to be sincere and genuine, not only in words, but in actions and in heart...and especially the choice to cherish and love freely and truly, without reservation and bias.

I've noticed in my lifetime that THAT choice, to love without reservation and bias is something that is extremely difficult. It is something my mom would claim isn't possible except with someone who is of your own flesh and blood. We all think we can do it, we all think we actually do it, and yet when the choice is upon us, we must confront the fact that maybe we haven't done it at all...that there's always an expectation we have of the other, a return for the love we've provided, a reservation we keep in case of emergencies, a neglect we would never have toward ourselves or our children, and a selfishness that we wouldn't want to admit existed in the way we love.

It is a difficult thing, to believe it of others and especially of myself, but I've found it within myself, acknowledged it, confronted it, and I know as much as it is possible to know, what my Choice is.