When I was about 7 years old I decided that I didnĀ“t like tomatoes. Just like that. No particular reason. I was just done with tomatoes.
I was known for picking them out and leaving them on the side but my highest achievement was to somehow convince my best friend to stop liking tomatoes too.
So if my decision was irrational I don't even want to talk about hers.
When asked why I didn't like tomatoes my answer was "I just don't like them". When someone asked my friend why she didn't like tomatoes her answer was "because Ruth doesn't like them"
So, yeah.
I remember clearly making up my mind and thinking out loud that I was not going to eat tomatoes anymore. Fortunately I grew out of it...when I graduated from college.
There are a few other stupid decisions that I've dragged with me throughout the years.
Maybe not decisions from when I was 7 but you know...decisions.
Back in school I never told my best friend that I liked him. I decided that we weren't gonna date. Ever. He was my best friend -and of course it didn't help that he was suuuuuch a player- so I decided that, under no circumstances, any dating would occur.
He cleaned up his act -most high school boys do- but by the time we were in college I had already made my decision back in high school so I kept it.
That did not go very well. A lot of words were left unsaid and it evolved into a very hard situation for me. It's really hard to get over something that never happened which makes me think that maybe someday I should write about unfinished businesses.
I'm not taking about regrets here -as a side note we are both happily married, just not to each other- . I am talking about dumb decisions taken during a certain period of time that don't need to be dragged into a different future.
It's hard to tell. When should one reconsider, when should one stick to it.
Another piece of work is the decision of having babies but the one thing I really struggle with right now is living in El Salvador .
It's been a while since I've been wanting to move. Our purpose of going back to El Salvador was to pay off our student loans as quickly as possible (we believe in the debt-free thing). This year we finally payed them off so now we are on this hiatus: if the reason for going back is now gone what then is holding us there? Is it that we are now comfortable with our life there or are we just dragging some old decision into our present?
Today, for the first time, I cried in a yoga class (Thank God for no lights on during savasana). I was the last one to walk out of the room because I was sobbing, silently but uncontrollably.
It was not a sad moment though, it was an I'm-sorry kind of moment.
I felt sorry that these are my last days here, that I'm going back but mostly because I don't want to go back.
I want to want to go back! and I don't know how to make that happen because it's not that I'm not happy, it's not that I don't like it.
It's the feeling of wanting to move forward, it's a matter of not forgetting what I want from life and for that I'm thankful for this trip. It reminded me so much of how I love to travel and how baaaaaad I wanted to move around the world, settle someplace and then re-settle somewhere else.
Of course now, reminiscing on disliking tomatoes seems trivial but as you can see that's not the problem. The problem is that no matter how trivial they may be I take all my decisions pretty seriously.