The Choice

I thought it would only be right to introduce you to my life by taking you back to where it all changed. A part of my life I refer to as ‘The Choice’. 

Before ‘The Choice’, I lived a very standard life for someone who had grown up in a council estate in the North-East of England. My life revolved around simple things, sex, drugs, alcohol and a growing list of questionable relationships and situationships.

I used partying and socialising to escape myself. I HATED being alone. If I focussed on staying busy, then maybe I wouldn't need to address the suffocation I felt consuming me from a life filled of trauma and bad decisions. Occasionally it would slip, the mask. I’d break down crying to my best friend at 2am on a random Thursday about the latest one night stand I had that I swore to myself was different this time. That they would stay. But they never did. I didn't respect myself and in turn, neither did they, why would they?

The only ones that did stay were the ones that wanted to be my friend, not my partner, or they had just as little respect for themselves as I had.

So that's where I was, pre-choice, I was in an abusive relationship with a drug dealer. He was someone I had known as a kid on the estate, I always felt sorry for him. Still did. I had lost my job at the local council when the pandemic hit, I had to give up my car, and I was living in his flat with about 2 bag-for-life’s worth of my belongings. 

The choices I thought I had then was; it was either this, or with my dad. Either way I was doing housewife stuff. Cooking tea ready for him coming in, doing washing, tidying, trying to stay busy with 0 hobbies and leaving absolutely no trace of my existence. My partying busy social life had been stripped from me when COVID hit, but weed stayed. I smoked when I woke up, and continued smoking until I went to sleep. Maybe if I was high enough, it wouldn't bother me so much when he came home from work and started screaming at me over me putting the socks on the radiator the wrong way. It didn't help. It did still bother me, but I kept smoking anyways.

I received a text from my dad during those months:

After months of barely surviving, miserable, helpless. I left. My first big choice. I packed up my 2 bags of stuff and booked a taxi whilst on Face-time to my Mam. Time to go sleep on her sofa for God knows how long and figure out what the fuck to do.

About two weeks later, my then ex decided to make a visit to my mam's front door, crying and begging for me to go back to him. By then I had secured a random administration job that I met some wonderful new friends at, I was in the process of getting my own flat, up-cycling furniture in my mams back garden, painting art for my walls and curated a dedicated 'bad bitch' playlist I listened to everyday. It felt like an easy choice for once, the only choice I could make. No.

As I closed that door and I turned around, something hit me. An epiphany.  A voice almost. From thin air, I felt it impale me.

 'You have a choice'

Always was my favourite excuse, it may as well of been my personal tagline. It always happens to me. I always attract the wrong people. I always end up in dangerous situations. I always end up hurt. Always. Always. Always.

I had become my own victim, and I was doing absolutely nothing to help myself. I enabled myself and without even realising, allowed others to enable me too. Now, I have a choice. What do you mean I have a choice? I started to ask myself. Well, I can’t exactly just choose to have unlimited money and eternal happiness forever, can I? Well, no, not exactly. But you do have a choice in a lot of things. Like who you date, who you allow into your life, how you speak to yourself, how you express yourself, what job you want to do, what colour hair you want to have.

Then without realising, I started making conscious

choices. They started small. I chose to dye my hair blue and get my septum pierced. Okay, so I’m choosing to express myself how I want to, not what I think is socially acceptable or how the people around me dress and act, gotcha. I decided to start being prouder and more open about the fact I am bisexual. I remember buying a huge ass bisexual flag and hanging it in my bedroom, and posing proudly in-front of it, one of my last social media posts. I started singing again, a passion of mine that was buried for a long time.

Above all, I started to choose myself. Soon after, I deleted all my social media and made myself unreachable. I really leaned into the whole being alone thing. I felt empowered for the first time in my life. Then the choices then became more productive towards rewiring my brain; I started reading my first ever ‘feminist book’. Women Don’t Owe You Pretty – Florence Given. My eyes were opened to a whole new way of thinking that I had never previously considered. Like i was breaking habits I had spent my whole life submitting to. I deserve the whole damn cake, why am I settling for crumbs?

I thrived living alone, despite the withdrawal from my coping mechanisms. A new feeling for me, privacy without the fear of it being invaded. 1st October 2020, I wrote my first journal entry. 

‘I always liked the idea of a journal but I’m such a private person that I never wanted my thoughts and secrets ever to be written down for anyone else to be able to read.’ 

Little did she know.

‘I feel like the next part of my life that I am about to embark on is probably worth documenting’.

Oh, she did know.

I stopped choosing the version of me I had created through survival mode and started choosing a version of me that was curious and new. A version that was yet to be perfected, but she was real, and she was growing. For once, I was welcoming change with open arms, I was embracing the unknown, and quite frankly, I was excited as fuck.

I’m a big believer there is no ‘wrong choice’, and we should absolutely forgive ourselves for making a choice that may not have turned out the way that we intended. But what I also believe in is that until you make a choice, you will stay stagnant.

Choices always make me think of 2 of Swords. I pulled this card when I was learning Tarot in 2022. I was doing a reading for my brother. My first real reading on someone other than myself. He was asking me to advise him on whether he should move out of the family home, and whether he should stay at his current job. I don't remember the other cards, but amongst those that jumped out of the deck was 2 of Swords. The reference book I was using at the time said ‘this card often indicates there are no good choices to be made, but it may also mean that there are no bad decisions. The energy leads into the 3 by offering the choice to make no choice at all’. To me, meaning that heartbreak and pain may be unavoidable, but to move forward, you need to make a choice, however difficult and unknowing it may feel.

I’ll always giggle when I pull this card for myself in a reading now, especially if I am procrastinating deciding on something. It’s a kick up the arse to just do something. Choose something. It may lead to something beautiful, or it may lead to something painful.

Since 2020 I have continued to make choices. Choices that have bettered my life. Choices that not everyone in my life agreed with or supported. Choices that have still been slightly questionable, like dying my armpit hair green. But the point is, they were my choices to make, after a lifetime of feeling like I had no control over anything in my life.

I chose to stop working full time in 2022 and later that year, I chose to start therapy. In 2023 I chose to sell all my belongings and buy a van to live in, then later that year I chose sobriety. And in 2026, I chose to start a blog.

We all have choices. Sometimes it may feel like our choices are limited, or that we simply 'don't have a choice' But I can wholeheartedly assure you that you do, you always have a choice. Things that happen TO us are out of our control, yes, but we can absolutely choose how we react, how we heal, how we grow.

I implore you to start making conscious choices. Choose something that younger you would have loved to have for tea tonight. Turkey Dinosaurs and cheesy pasta for me, or sweetcorn mash and gravy all mixed in a bowl. Hey, we listen and we don't judge. Choose that outrageously bold hair colour. Choose to start that course you’ve been eyeing up. Choose to start that business. Choose to leave that shitty ass relationship. Choose to distance yourself from that toxic friend. Choose to go no contact with an abusive parent. Choose to quit that job and tell that awful boss to go fuck themselves. Choose yourself.  Or don't. The choice is yours to make.

Either way, nothing changes, if nothing changes.