Digital Cameras: Decision-Making

This is all I ask of my friends - to make some of my decisions for me.

I just got off the phone with Stephen, who is married to Amy and father of Avery and Ashton, and one of the best damn cooks I know - and he's all Hawaii-boy with the gas-fueled wok in the front driveway for fried rice (no spam!).

Anyway, he said (I had sent them my itinerary, since they'll be taking me to and retrieving me from the airport), "Damn! You have to send digital pictures and stuff!"

He's right, of course. Of course I do. I will now try to figure out a way. And I'll be up there in a couple weeks and we'll go electronics shopping (yet another forte of his - bargain shopping) and figure out solutions to all my digital camera quandaries.

See the thing is, I have to make a million decisions a minute. I have so many things to decide to do and figure out and juggle and prioritize - I understand why the normal person exhibits much more inertia than I do. I'm effing exhausted from decision-making. I just want my friends to help me out sometimes. "Take calculus - you'll have fun." "Go to Oregon and go camping for a week while you have a chance." "Take the year off and travel the world." "Apply to law school."

I won't always agree with what I'm told to do, but I certainly won't always disagree. It's a starting point. OK, a decision has been made, and then I will push it at all its boundaries, weighing new information and insights and priorities, and redecide as necessary. But the hardest part for me is making the initial decision and that's where I need help.

I love being alive now. I am a woman who can be independent and travel and own property and have a career. This is amazing, historically speaking. And I want to live it to the fullest because I can.

But at the same time, it's overwhelming. I have so many options that I chase my tail. What do I want? Really want? Well, I wanted to teach, and I did for 8 years. Isn't that long enough? Why do I have to make a decision for the rest of my life? I loved what I did and I think I'm a much better person for it, but I have other lives to live, too. I wanted to live in Germany, so I did for over a year. Doesn't mean I want to live there FOREVER. I wanted to return to Alaska, so I did. And two years where it gets so cold that motors won't run - that was enough for me. I wanted to study economics this year, so I started and dove in and learned after about six weeks that I don't have enough math background and it was all too much commitment for too little benefit - so I stopped. I redecided. It wasn't a bad decision; I just didn't have all the info.

I've made significant life choices that close some doors and open others. So I want to go peek behind those unlocked doors and see behind as many as I can. I've done nothing permanent on purpose - no tattoos, no children. A digital camera, and a visa to India, whether to store or sell my truck, and teaching this summer - these things aren't permanent, aren't overwhelmingly important. So I want somebody else to take a turn at those kinds of decisions for me sometimes.