There has never been enough clarity in the world for me. Even as a child, I recognized it. For me, the world’s uncertainties often manifested in the panic of indecision.
“Which sandwich do you want?”
A simple question, at a standard Jimmy Johns location in Iowa.
“Uh,” I said. If I get the BLT, it’ll probably be salty because of the bacon, but I don’t want a fountain drink here. The only thing I’d really like is lemonade, but it’s filled with too much sugar and my stomach will feel sick. I could get the lettuce-wrap, that sounds good. The lettuce is always soggy here though, and I remember last time I ordered the lettuce wrap and the worker was pissed at me. That wasn’t really my fault though—
“Kate, this isn’t that big of a decision.”
And so went my childhood.
The thing is, when I was a kid, I laughed off my inability to make decisions. People around me kind of laughed it off, too. I was the trademark friend who couldn’t choose a restaurant. Whatever. It didn’t bother me seriously, because I was holding out for my life experience to guide me to the door that held all the certainties in the world—and I couldn’t wait for my 18th birthday when I would surely be awarded this door’s key.
That didn’t happen.
What had appeared to me as a clarity that every adult possessed — about how to act, what to like, a life path, finding the passion that can drive one to work an entire career — didn’t form itself in front of my eyes, even as I gained life experience.
It was all fine and dandy in my regular life with low-risk decisions. But then, I started dating people. It seemed harder and harder to lack the certainty I craved. Instead of asking myself about the consequences of a sandwich, I weighed the weight of hurting someone else versus hurting myself. I used to have the same pattern of thinking with every partner I dated. It went something like: Do I really like this person, or am I just afraid to lose them? How does anyone know who is best for them? How do other people feel about their partners? I at first attributed this to dating the wrong partners. But, at a certain point, when the SAME sequence of questions resurfaced again and again regardless of who I was dating, I realized it could be an indication that the problem was actually myself. I wondered how anyone, ever, knows when they have found someone they can spend every day with, for the rest of time. It felt like, somehow, everyone had access to certainty that I couldn’t gain. It felt impossible to me.
I have recently discovered that the reason absolute certainty feels impossible to me is because it is impossible. There is no way to absolutely know for certain that you have made the “right” decision, ever. You can’t. That, to me, is a very uncomfortable realization. Though this realization has validated many of the unsettling, doubt-filled, and anxious years of my childhood, it has also invited a dread of making decisions for a life that I don’t want — whether that be with a partner that isn’t right for me, or a job, or a career, etc.
On the positive side of a lack of certainty in this life, there is a lack of certainty in this life! HA. What I really mean is that there are very few things that exist on one side or the other of GOOD and BAD. Knowing that the throes of uncertainty are unescapable, I must make my peace with this.
Part of making my peace is making my certainties. I am certain I am alive. I am certain I am living a life authentic to myself. I am certain that I will not have the certainty I crave in making most decisions in my life—and I am certain that I have lived my life successfully up until this point anyway. Struggling with uncertainty is painful — accepting uncertainty is freeing. Though I have not mastered the art of accepting it, I have come to terms with the fact that me and certainty will never be where we want each other, and that is enough of a start for me.