The Decision

By Gail Balentine

Helena walked along Main Street, lost in thought, and only slowly became aware that she was in a neighborhood she didn’t know. She stopped and noticed that an older couple, the only other people on the street, were going up the walk to a house about 50 yards ahead of her. She continued to watch as they arrived at the door of the neat, gray Cape Cod style cottage and she thought they would go in together, but they didn’t. The gentleman waited for the woman to enter the house and then crossed the street to enter another neat, gray Cape Cod style home. That’s when Helena noticed the two houses opposite each other, and all those down the street as far as she could see, seemed to match, like snowflakes. But that was at first glance. Just as with snowflakes, when she looked more closely, differences appeared. Each of the houses was its own slightly different shade of gray; some were a little larger or smaller than the one the woman had entered; some had straight brick walkways while others had curved pebbled paths.

              Helena looked for a street sign but found none. She looked for house numbers but found none of those, either. There were no mailboxes, no cars on the street and none going past her. She was alone. Fighting a mild but growing sense of unease, she took out her iPhone to have the map locate her position. It would not turn on. Her sense of unease increased. She turned to look behind her – it was the exact same as ahead of her. She pinched herself, hard enough to say ‘ouch’, only to find she was definitely awake.

              “All right, stay calm”, she told herself aloud. Three deep breaths in a row helped, a little. “You got yourself to this place and you can get yourself out of it.” She nodded to reassure herself, trying to ignore the nagging voice inside her head that kept asking ‘How? … How? … HOW?”

              Helena had always needed a plan, an agenda or schedule, a To-Do List. There were different names for how she kept her anxiety at bay but it all came down to avoiding being directionless. For her, not knowing her next move meant panic.

              “That lady. Go talk to that lady.” Something she could do! Without a moment’s hesitation she went to the house she had seen the woman enter. She walked rapidly up the brick walkway, then the three stairs, and immediately rang the bell. No response. She waited a minute and rang the bell again. Finally, the door opened.

              “Helena!” The woman wiped her hands on her apron and held out her arms. Helena had never seen the woman before in her life.

              “How … how do you know me? And where are we? And why am I here?”

              “Of course I know you, we all know you.” She indicated the other houses with a sweep of her hand. Helena turned and looked - every door was now open and one or more people stood in each doorway, smiling and waving at them.

              Helena started to feel a bit faint. She could feel her heart race and her breath becoming shallow. She recognized the beginnings of a panic attack. “Perhaps I could come in and sit down for a minute?” she asked.

              “Oh no, dear, not quite yet, that’s not how it works. First, you have to decide where to start; you have to know which house you want to enter. ”” She spoke in a calm voice, as if soothing an upset child. “Each house will give you different choices, different results, and once you select it you will be there for a while so you need to look them all over carefully and choose. Have you done that?” The woman looked at the other houses again, smiled at the people who were standing there waiting, and turned back to Helena with an expectant look on her face. “Well, dear, are you ready to decide or must you walk some more?”

              The woman in front of her was right, only Helena could decide. Looming large was the knowledge that she had been procrastinating for far too long. The question was: should she follow her heart and take a leap of faith, even though it was an unpopular choice with some of the people who cared most about her?  Each of her family members and friends had weighed in, freely sharing their thoughts and opinions, until Helena had begun to have trouble identifying whose opinion was whose. That was why early that morning she’d left her house and started walking.  To her, action rather than sitting and rethinking the same thoughts, was preferable.

              The woman continued to look at her with gentle eyes, the color of rich chocolate. They held no criticism, nor advice, but rather a caring interest in what Helena would choose to do. Interestingly, under that steady gaze, the excuses starting dropping away one by one, like Fall leaves from a tree, and Helena made her decision. The choice suddenly felt far less complicated than before and she admitted that all along she’d known what she wanted to do. It was fear of challenges that lay ahead that had frozen her.

              She closed her eyes and told herself it was time to enter a house. When she opened them, she was at her own front door, and chuckled at what the mind can do. She reached for the key in her pocket. Along with it was a slip of paper with these words:

The universe has no fixed agenda. Once you make any decision, it works around that decision. There is no right or wrong, only a series of possibilities that shift with each thought, feeling, and action that you experience. ---Deepak Chopra

            As she entered her house, she thought about the woman’s compassionate brown eyes and decided that to Dr. Chopra, decisions may be a series of possibilities, but to her what lies ahead would be more like a street of neat, gray Cape Cod style cottages to explore.