Forks in the Road: How Fate and Choices Shape a Life

When I was 10, a wise friend traced the lines in my palm and told me I’d face a decision so big, it would change my life. One line stretched between my fingers, another veered off toward the outer edge of my hand. “Hopefully, you’ll make the right choice,” she said.

That premonition haunted me. What would the big choice be? Would I recognize it, or would it be one of a thousand tiny decisions along the way? I imagined myself, years later, dangling from the edges of my own palm, unable to choose the right path.

…

I pondered my future more than the average tween. I see myself at 14 in my bedroom, the walls a shade of fiberglass pink that my mother picked out. Michelle Branch lyrics—“tears form behind my eyes / but I do not cry / counting the days that pass me by”—flowed from my gold stereo on repeat. I’d sit on my bed, pinching my hips, looking for muffin tops. I’d read Cosmo Girl for tips on how to hide the red bumps on my chin that only I seemed to have. But more than anything, I dreamed.

I closed my eyes and created screenplays of the future dates I’d go on. How sophisticated I’d be. The beaded butterfly tops from Charlotte Russe I’d wear. Dreaming of my future often clashed with my present. I’d turn down parking lot hangouts to sit alone in my bedroom on Friday nights, my imagination the only company I needed. I pictured the future so intensely—the body I’d flaunt, the people I’d love, the potential of being a writer in New York or a flight attendant or a doctor’s wife.

…

By my mid-20s, imagining the future felt like staring into a concrete wall. The vibrant dreams of my childhood had been replaced by the weight of reality. I wanted more. I needed to be someone other than the person I’d been in high school, different from the woman I’d become in college. But I couldn’t picture a life without my mediocre boyfriend or the girls I’d lived with for years. They seemed to understand me better than I understood myself. I couldn’t see the world beyond the city where I’d spent my college years.

I don’t feel the same nostalgia for that version of myself, though I do miss her body and her clothes. I wish she’d had the confidence to appreciate them more and carve her own path without fear of choosing the wrong one.

When you look back on the years leading up to the present, you notice a pattern.

My pattern is this: I’m a runner. Not the athletic type who wakes up at 6 AM to exercise, but the type who flees to a new city to avoid a conversation. The type who plots to move to a different continent and only tells people once the plane ticket is non-refundable.

…

When I first moved to Madrid, I’d have these primal feelings of being immensely far from home. I’d walk down the street amidst lovers and friends eating tapas and laughing, and I’d think, I actually did this. I’d look at the moon and picture my friends in California looking at the sun. In my mind’s eye, I could picture two points on a map—one on the Pacific Coast and another piercing through the heart of Spain. A small string connecting the two pins. I could walk along that tightrope back home if I ever wanted to. But I didn’t.

I could feel the fork in my palm growing deeper, as if I’d broken the rules of my own fate in some way.

My therapist might say that running is a way to avoid getting too close to people. I hate hurting people more than I hate hurting myself. But maybe not all patterns are meant to be broken. Perhaps it’s a compulsion to keep me awake. A primitive instinct to keep going forward. To shed the skin. To grow a brighter tail. To forge my own way instead of worrying how my path looks to somebody else.

…

I don’t see the future as picturesquely as I did in my childhood bedroom, nor does it look like a dull gray slab of cement. When I look into the folds of my hands now, I notice more lines etching out from the main crease. The many crossroads in this life. The routes I didn’t take. The ones I did.

I can picture my lives on those other paths. I see myself in California with a Pilates body and a green tea in a manicured hand. I see myself with circles under my eyes and a child sleeping in the back seat of the car; I’m driving north. I’m wading out into the Pacific, trying to hide my thighs. I’m not sure if I’m happier, but I’m living. I’m there. I’m still me in my truest form—the person I am deep inside.

I’m not sure if I’ve reached that big fork yet. I’ve surpassed two major decisions in my life thus far, and there’s no doubt in my mind that I took the right path. If ever I find myself on that other path—the ominous one reaching out towards the abyss—I’m sure I can find a detour.

Maybe my friend was right all along. Maybe we always find our way, even when it feels like we’ve veered off course. Premonitions, after all, only reveal their truths in hindsight.