We all make choices in life

The hard thing is to live with them

I’ve heard those words before, but they I never really felt them until tonight. After watching the movie The Words for the fourth time, when The Old Man (Jermey Irons) said those words to Rory Jansen (Bradley Cooper) about how Rory should move forward with his life, to live with the choices he made of stealing The Old Man’s work and publishing it under Rory’s name.

The story of the movie is an incredible piece of art. Rory is this angry young man who’s trying to be a good writer and get his work published, only to be faced with rejection. When he stumbles upon a writing of story that hasn’t been published. After he finishes reading the story, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He was completely obsessed by the words in that story.

Rory was confronted by that incredible writing and it made him realize that he is not who he thought he was. The story challenged who Rory is, it completely demoralized him and made him feel that he may never be who he wanted.

The choice I made was a year and half ago when I chose to stay in the states in San Francisco and seek asylum, escaping from my life back in Egypt. The problem was that, even before I made that choice, even before I cancelled my flight and my plans on going back, deep down inside of me I knew I was unable to fight that choice. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to talk myself out of it or forget about it.

But the hardest thing is living with that choice every day. By choosing to live in SF, I also choose not to be with my family, and leave my ex. Am I a selfish person, prioritizing my future over my family and friends? Will anyone understand why I did what I did? Will it matter if anyone did understand?

I don’t know if I’d make the same decisions if I were to go back in time. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s too late to change those choices. I just have to figure out a way to live with them and to accept the consequences.