Journal 65 Five Best Decisions

A blogger that I admire recently filled in this questionnaire-type topic about life.
She has five definite ones, they were all solid, real choices, and she picked them as her five knowing how much they shaped her life. You can read about them here:

http://www.schmutzie.com/weblog/2011/9/28/the-five-best-decisions-of-my-life.html#.ToNQ22DQ_o4.twitter

I have to admit, I don't have such a ready-made list, one that jumps out at me with a certainty that I feel cemented to.
Part of me wishes I did, but I have to take the thorn-studded route here, meander along it, and muse for a bit, what were five, or more, of my best decisions, rambling as they may be, that shaped my life?

Truly, five singular spectacular decisions stand out, but a few come to mind as life-shapers..although they didn't necessarily look like that at the time:

• learning to read. I guess this wasn't so much a decision as a government-mandated rule that all children are subject to, but I really took to it. learning to love books came soon after, and this has saved my life, over and over again, when things were bleakest


• getting a part-time job while I was in school at a local steakhouse. I wouldn't have many of the things I have today: some (most) of my best friends, Mike (I met him through a close friend I worked with), my loft (I saved all my restaurant cheques for the down payment)


• going to design school after leaving art school during a recession, fearing I would be destined to live in poverty , ie, 'starving artist' for life if I didn't do something fast, career-wise


• going to therapy after the robbery at said steakhouse, and committing myself to really looking at my life, and the patterns I used to get through it, and how I could change them


• getting in the car, after all the detrius had cleared out of my way a bit, and driving to Maine, alone

So...that's them. Nothing earth-shattering, but really, once I started thinking about it, they all kind of fell into place. The way those types of decisions tend to do. Even if they weren't the right decisions at the time, they became the right decisions, the way you can really make any decision right if you give it enough time.