Looking back at life, can we be satisfied with our choices?
I was 14-years-old, living with my mother and sister on Long Island. It was the summer of ‘68 when my mother decided to take advantage of a great offer. She surprised us with airline tickets to sunny California. It felt as if we had just won the lottery.
What happened next changed everything. A week before we were ready to leave, I received some bad news. I FAILED my Algebra regents. I ONLY missed by two points, but just the same, I was devastated. My body felt as if it was shutting down. I had to decide whether to go to summer school and retake the test or face being “placed” in a remedial Plain Geometry class.
A California adventure was a chance of a lifetime and yet I was torn as to what to do. I could not fully grasp how this decision would change my life forever! Being a teenager, I wanted to go to Disneyland, take a private tour of Warner Brothers Studios, have the chance to slither down the Topanga Slide and visit Universal Studios where famous actors roamed. I wanted to eat my first taco and the feel the warmth of the sidewalk under my bare feet.
It’s obvious by now that I opted for my California adventure. However, once September rolled around, I had to face my demons. My new strategy, laid out by my Guidance Counselor, offered me a chance for reprieve. I could switch majors from academics to business and forgo all the courses I knew were only going to hold me back even further – more math, science and language. Instead, I enrolled in bookkeeping, office practice, keypunch, typing and other assorted administrative classes. By eliminating the former, I had a fighting chance to succeed and regain my identity.
And so, as I found myself near graduation, I didn’t have lots of choices for admittance to college. Even so, I submitted applications up and down the eastern seaboard. Somehow my fantasies of entering a four-year college never materialized. Just the same, reality hit again. I was destined to follow another path. So off I went to junior college.
Then G-d had another plan for me. I contracted mononucleosis (back then it was called it the kissing disease) near the end of the first semester. I was told I needed bed rest. The doctor assured me if I took it easy during the day, I could go to school at night. I took his advice and enrolled in psychology and business law…then dropped out.
My ambitions were changing, and Manhattan was calling. I accepted a job as a receptionist in an accounting office. I was loving the city life, becoming independent and moving towards adulthood.
I’ve learned that one size does not fit all. I was worried I might have screwed up my life when I chose to go to California and yet, fate jumped in and my destiny was changed forever. Had I gone to summer school that year and not visited California, I might not have returned.
Is there a time when you had a major event happened that changed your life?
For more about my story go to my story on my website or if you want to learn ways to keep your body limber, strong and stave off the chronic conditions associated with aging, one of the easiest things to do is contact us at 818-620-1442 or email us. We see fitness differently!