a day in a life

yesterday was a beautiful day in chicago; temperatures were in the low seventies with a slight breeze, bright fall sunshine, and a perfect blue autumn sky. in the morning two of my friends woke up with very different plans for the day. one got up early to catch a plane to miami to begin her three day honeymoon with her new husband. the other woke up around nine in order to make her eleven o'clock appointment at planned parenthood to have an abortion.

i spent the bulk of the afternoon before work wandering in the park and thinking about the distance and closeness between these two significant days. both women faced the day with the man who shared their position, men they love, though differently. each woman will most likely remember the day for the rest of her life, though one was starting down a path, while the other was choosing not to follow the map. both are truly adult actions, the kind i still have a hard time imagining myself old enough to experience. both are very concious decisions on how each of these women want to live their life; neither is a better or worse decision (though, in the eyes of many people, they represent the two opposing ends of the scale of social acceptablity).

thinking about my friends' days, i felt an odd mix of sadness and hope. sadness for the loss of innocence and the frightening ineveitability of adulthood; i cannot protect or prepare either my friends or myself for the whirl of emotions we are bound to experience over the next few months and years, or the highs and lows we are each bound to face. hope for what is still to come for each of us, for the support and love that they had going into their respective days, and which- hopefully- we will all have for the many other wildly divergent days to come.

i love these women. i champion their choices, and am glad that they each had the chance to make them. i hope that women can always make such choices, and do so always with love and support.