When I moved from Cali to NYC in 1984, it was a decision that felt altogether perfect for the direction I wanted to go in my life. The pace of the place shook me just right, the career path I wanted to roll on as a music journlist would happen there easier than So.Cal. All of it made sense so I made the choice and did it. At the time, while I was dimly aware of the move’s domino effect, I didn’t think of it as anything to stop me. Well, hell, sure, people will miss me but this is what I wanted and needed to do.

Inside of that move there were naturally a multitude of choices ranging from Good One (taking the SPIN job even though I wasn’t quite at the skill level yet to take it on, then working my arse off to get there) to Meh, Maybe Not (the blue pill? the red pill? Why not both?). Not to mention the downright strange, bordering on batsh*t ones where I’d say to myself: “This will make a good story someday” as I did things like walk across an active train trestle in South Carolina in the middle of the night with a guy I’d just met at a party and smoked a joint with. And honestly, that’s the sum total of the story: no train ran me over, I didn’t have to jump off the trestle, I didn’t fall off the trestle, the guy walked me to the sliding doors of my hotel. The end. I did store a sense of what crazy adrenaline feels like, which has come in handy for certain fictional moments that don’t turn out as well.

But mostly the choices I’ve made have been around how things will land in my own life.

When making the decision three years ago to move back to So.Cal to be near my dad, the choice felt one-hundred-percent the right one and my absolute gratitude that Dennis was onboard and felt similarly cannot be overstated. The idea being to see him happy and safe. Those two intentions blinking neon over every moment. Currently I’m spying that neon-blink from different angles. What’s fascinating (OK, terrifying and confusing too) is that I see the time is now that choosing to honor his autonomy in making his own choices—the ones that make him happy—is putting him in direct opposition to safety. Naturally he doesn’t view it that way. For him, everything is fine and should stay exactly as it is. From where I stand, sit, jump, run around, wave my arms, the things that are falling through the cracks on the most basic level are putting him in danger. (Shout out to every parent and all caregivers the world over who from age 0 to infinity move inside the happy-safe dance, needing to know when to do-si-do and when to step off the parquet floor when it comes to choices made for those who need it.)

And leaving the choice to him currently is no choice at all. Literally. He doesn’t want anything to change. Over the last many many months as this situation has been developing, I’ve whittled it down to two choices (with a sounding board that looks a lot like Dennis) and it’s to move in with him and do the daily caretaking or set him up in an independent living apartment down the road with meals, housekeeping, and other folks for social stuff. (There are obviously other choices inside of this, but suffice to say, starting from multitudes and whittling down through social services and otherwise, these two are where we’ve landed currently.) No surprise that when we talk about those options with him he A) doesn’t like either and B) can’t really see what the problem is that would lead to either happening and, finally C) can’t actually really remember that we’ve presented options in the first place. So… if the neon blink is around Happy and I climb up and balance on one of those “p”s, the view includes me. Where am I inside of that moment? To be honest, it’s difficult to think about being there away from Dennis and the cats and my own autonomy inside of our apartment. I also absolutely feel how amazing and grateful I am to spend time with my dad, even as I mourn the part of him that will never be there again. The conversations we won’t have around books or his collages. It’s also difficult to think of him being disrupted in his day-to-day and living somewhere new because that’s just hard no matter how old you are. The happy-medium currently is being with him most evenings and some mornings to make sure he eats and takes his pills. And if I can’t be that person, then Dennis or my dad’s friend J has been because it does take a village and currently I’m lucky to have that (not to mention a few people reading this have and continue to be there, which makes me cry a little with gratitude). Yet, still, choices want to be made and this one wraps its arms around another human who for sure has opinions. Who is stubborn and full of love and good intentions but also a little blind to what is happening in real time. And I’m his reflection, inheriting all those traits and now charged with inhabiting what it means to choose.