The realities of choice

Dispiriting. Getting out of bed before dawn and getting Shark to school.

Shark is equally glum, and still considering her options. She's had a few sparkling days of living normally. Organising her own time, following her interests, playing with her thermistor, and asking herself, I wonder what will happen next?

Now, she says, she knows. The school will find ways to waste her time. Her time will be micro-managed, interests will be guided on someone else's terms, the day is chopped into another's organisation, and she is back in the inescapable company of the dreadful Maths teacher, the teacher who cannot communicate even a passing interest, let alone passion. Roll on 3pm.

Dispiriting indeed.

I use my brief time with her for my words of motherly wisdom. I tell her to make up her own mind and we will support her, regardless of her choice.

More usefully, perhaps, I tell her, if she is undecided, don't fret. At some point she will know. A line will be crossed - violating the way she creates her life, striking against the principles she uses to guide her choices, bringing a depth of emotional pain or a physical threat - and then the decision will be clear. This person, this place, this circumstance, it is all doing more violence to a state of being, than the rewards they bring.