Decisions, decisions

by Madeleine Kando

Ever since I can remember I have had difficulty making decisions. It started already when I was ten years old. I had to choose between a bike with pink handles and one with blue handles. I agonized for a whole day, pacing my room in Amsterdam. That’s where I lived with my parents, my older brother and my twin sister. I blame it all on her of course. Choosing the right thing is essential when you are competing with a twin for your single parent’s love and your older brother’s attention. It creates a lot of sister-envy and self-doubt.

If I chose the bike with the pink handles, she would get the one with the blue handles. And THEN what was I going to do? There was bound to be someone who would say ‘Oh, I love that bike with the blue handles’. It would totally ruin it for me. I would be miserable, hate my bike with the pink handles and wished that I had chosen the one with the blue handles.

So, yes, it is all my twin sister’s fault. As I grew older, my inability to choose grew worse. When she had a boyfriend with blond hair, and mine had brown hair, I couldn’t stop feeling jipped. I wasn’t sure if I liked my brown haired boyfriend any more. Why couldn’t he have blond hair, like HERS?

I started traveling after high school and finally felt the umbilical cord that tied me to my twin sister somewhat loosen around my neck. I still had difficulty deciding anything, however, but that was because there were now a lot more choices in my life. That’s the trouble with growing up: nobody tells you what to do any more. I hated that. I lived in London for a while where I had to make choices a lot. Every day I had to decide whether I should take the subway home or the bus. What I should wear to work: high heels or sneakers. What to do on my days off: go to the park or go to the zoo..I often avoided making decisions altogether by just roaming the beautiful streets of London.

As my life developed things did’nt get any easier for me. Every day I was confronted with a barrage of choices. How on earth was I supposed to decide what kind of dog to get? Long-haired? Small? Blue eyed? Who needs all those breeds anyway?

My wise husband explains my handicap this way: ‘You cannot choose’ he says, ‘because you want it all. You really want both the blue and pink handles. You want to be like the famous Schroedinger cat: dead and alive at the same time. But, unless you shrink yourself to the size of an electron (he read somewhere that they can be in two places at once, the lucky devils), you have to make a choice’.

I know he hit the nail on the head. I don’t want to miss out on anything. Especially now, that I am on vacation in beautiful Kauai. It truly is a curse. I woke up this morning and couldn’t decide whether I should get out of bed on the left or the right side. I can’t decide which beach to go to today. And tomorrow: should I go on a jungle hike or a boat trip?

Maybe, if some words were banned from the English vocabulary I wouldn’t be able to give in to my wishy-washiness. Words like ‘perhaps’, ‘what if’, ‘suppose’, ‘assuming’…

But I think I am fighting a losing battle. Choices are the name of the game these days. Not too long ago I could still understand my telephone bill. The company offered me a few reasonable choices. But these days just receiving the bill in the mail causes me heart palpitations and I postpone paying it until it is way overdue.

When we go shopping, my husband and I couldn’t be further apart on the choosing scale. He is a no nonsense kind of person that grabs the first thing that seems to work and moves on. Me, I am the opposite. Shopping for me is a paralyzing experience. How can I settle on anything? What about all the undiscovered treasures out there? What if I leave a store and someone else finds the glass slipper?

I am looking out my big bedroom window over an endless stretch of Hawaiian ocean. I wish I was a fish. Up, down, left, right, everywhere I looked, it would be the same. I wouldn't have to choose which way to swim or what part of the ocean to visit next. Boy, what a life that would be. leave comment here