"I Want My Life Back!!"- Choices and Consequences

Choose your road carefully...

Many years ago, I had a friend-we'll call her Jan-who struggled her whole life with various issues. She had one younger sister and her parents harbored an open disappointment that they never had a son. She had lots of hobbies and interests, friends, and strove to meet her parent's expectations. We met in a psychology class in our first semester at a community college. We were a couple of overwhelmed kids in our first few days adjusting to life in the grown up world. We started talking and became fast friends after that. We were both about 18 years old...

Fast forward about 3 years and Jan began dating Dave, who was a nice, average, safe sort of guy. Jan's dad was thrilled when they planned to marry after they graduated college. Jan started to have some issues. She wasn't talking to her friends, but Jan had begun seeing a therapist. She had occasional spats with Dave but no one believed it was anything other than normal communication glitches with couples. Jan said that she and Dave talked about not having kids-she didn't want them, he did-but he wasn't going to 'push' her. She also told me that a couple of months before the wedding, she was going to a treatment  center in Florida to deal with an eating disorder. I thought the timing was crazy since they were still going ahead with the wedding as soon as she got back. She insisted that it would be fine and she wanted to get her disorder under control before she got married.

Jan came back home about 3 weeks before the wedding. Dave, her parents, sister and other friends were busily engaged in keeping the wedding on track. Everything was prepped, paid for and all that was needed was for Jan to show up on the wedding day. About two weeks before the wedding, Jan told me that one of the issues she dealt with at the treatment center was that she was a lesbian, but that she was putting that behind her and going ahead with the wedding. I tried to get her to see the folly of it. 'How can you go forward and marry Dave knowing you are a lesbian? That is not fair to him! He wants to have a large family and you've told me you don't want to have children!' 

Jan insisted that everyone was counting on her to get married, including her parents who laid out a great deal of money, and that it was too late to get any of it back. I tried to tell her that the money was nothing compared to any regrets she would have-knowing she was a lesbian-by marrying a man she had also admitted she only loved 'as a friend'. She swore me to silence. I told her that she was making this choice for herself and I did not agree with it, but the consequences and all of the emotional fallout was hers and hers alone. The wedding was quite a true travesty...full of pomp and ceremony that no one truly believed or felt. I was going through my own mid-20s issues and was ready to move on. This was Jan's issue, but there was still more I was yet to witness...

Not even a year later, Jan told me she was pregnant. 'Aren't you going to congratulate me?' I sat silently, unable to fathom what I had just been told as the train wreck of Jan's life loomed larger in front of me.  "Congratulations?" was all I could muster. When Jr was born, everyone was happy, except Jan. She would give over the care of her son to anyone who would take him. Jan was often working overtime and had lots of meetings to go to for her 'eating disorder'. Her clear avoidance was wearing thin on Dave and her parents, whom she argued with frequently. 

I was at her parent's house one afternoon as we were to meet up for lunch. As I was exiting the restroom, I couldn't help but overhear Jan and her mother having an extremely heated argument in the next room. Jan-'But it's NOT what *I* want!'  Mom-'This is your life now.' Jan-'I WANT MY LIFE BACK!!!' Mom-'That's too bad! THIS is the reality...THIS is your responsibility! He's YOUR child. Dave's YOUR husband. You can't go back!' Jan ran out of the room crying. I picked up my purse and left the house. 

Jan was spinning out of control after that. She started having an affair with a woman at work. She and Dave were fighting and it was ugly. I distanced myself and knew that this whole family was too toxic for me to be around anymore. Lesson learned....I backed away and knew we could no longer be friends...though in truth, we'd stopped being friends long before that. It was just as ugly parting with her-like breaking up with a lover. She was so lost and confused-like when we first met-but I had no map to help her out this time. I had my next 'class' to get to and I had to leave her to find her own way or I would never get where I needed to go.

So many lessons were learned in the 10+ years I was friends with Jan and company. Be true to yourself. There are choices and consequences. Our actions impact others even if we believe our choices do not. I have the gift of maturity because of that time in my life. So many thoughts...so many memories...and this is the first time I've written this out for others to read. I grew stronger, wiser, independent and in some ways-harder- from that experience. Consider my memory-Jan's story-another lesson to learn. What do you feel you have learned from her story? The final purge of this memory....may it's energy be transformed into something....beautiful...