These are the times that try men's (and women's) souls.

This is obviously not I (unfortunately), though it more or less accurately depicts my current state of mind.

the REAL Alexis contemplating conflict

It's been said that all is fair in love and war. I don't believe such to be the case in either. In war, obviously, innocent people die on a regular basis. In love, as often as not someone equally innocent is hurt. It may be reality, but how is it fair?

I'm at either a fork or a crossroad (or something of that ilk) in my life. I feel free to blog about it because  (A) neither party involved in my fork or crossroad or whatever it is knows about my blog to the best of my knowledge, and (B) what I'm writing here is something of which both are aware.

I date someone here, and I date someone at home. The man I date here at school also dates someone in his hometown. I'm not sure about the person I date at home, although I find it hard to believe that he whiles away his hours staring at my picture and pining for me. It's expressly stated in both cases that the dating relationship in either case is not exclusive. At one time the person at home I dated exclusively, but that was many moons ago. We then went from not even speaking to not dating to dating casually when we're both in the home area.

The quandary forcing the fork or crossroad is that the boy from my home area has been accepted for next year to a medical school across a relatively narrow body of water from my school. It will be neither practical nor prudent to continue to date both of them, however casual the dating relationships may be. It has to be one or the other or neither, at least at any given time.

The decision may be made for me. I may arrive back at school in August to find that Person A is in a serious relationship with another woman. Likewise, Person B may fall madly in love with a medical school student or clerical employee or protester who frequents the grounds outside his medical school. Option C could even be that one or the other or both may forsake heterosexuality and emerge from the closet, though I have seen no  such leanings and would be surprised were that to turn out to be the case.

In any event someone, even if it is not I,  has a decision looming on the horizon. I hope it is as painless as possible for everyone involved.

      Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
      And sorry I could not  travel both 
      And be one traveler, long I stood
      And looked down one as far as I could
      To where it bent in the undergrowth.

      And took the other as just as fair
      And having perhaps the better claim
      Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
      Though as for the passing there
      Had worn them both really about the same.

      And both that morning equally lay 
      In leaves no step had trodden black.
      Oh, I kept the first for another day.
      Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
      I doubted if I should ever turn back.

      I shall be telling this with a sigh
      Somewhere ages and ages hence.
      Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
      I took the one less traveled by,
      And that has made all the difference.

I typed the poem from memory, so my punctuation is not likely identical to  Robert Frost's, but I believe I have all the words in place. i included it in the blog primarily as evidence that my education did not consist exclusively of math and science courses and that i am a well-rounded individual in an educational sense if not in a literal physical sense. I'm probably being overly melodramatic, and I can't even blame teen angst for it, as I'm now twenty and officially past my teens. At this particular moment in time, however, this seems like a major issue to me -- not so major, however that I'm allowing it to interfering with my studies. Medical school is my # 1 priority and must continue to be so until its completion.

I shall now attempt to attach a music video file that's even more bathos than the poem I cited. My father has always said that I am a drama queen. Perhaps there is more truth in his assertion than I've ever cared to admit.

It's almost pay day for most of you. Happy Pay Day, and I hope your January has been filled with nothing but comfort and joy. 

Anyway, here's the video, which is of a song by Don McLean, who ranks right up there with Janice Ian or whatever her name is as one of the most depressing lyricists on the planet.
The video appears perhaps to have been taken in Siberia, although until the shot of the priest and the church near the end of the video, the place could easily enough be mistaken for Wasilla, Alaska in the spring.