by Anne Marie Kirsten

Photo credits: Stephen Mease, tortoon

Have you ever mulled something over for so long that when you finally made a decision, it had nothing to do with the pros or cons, but was instead based off of the result of an arbitrary coin toss?

I’d been quietly agonizing over something for approximately one year and three months, flipping imaginary coins, when the answer finally appeared in my inbox last week. Let’s be clear: that email had nothing to do with the dilemma in question. But I took it as a divine sign that pointed to “yes.” Ok, here comes the quandary, and brace yourself, First World problems up ahead.

One year and almost four months ago, my family and I moved into our dream home. When I say the word “dream,” it’s relative. Producers from any number of HGTV programs might poke this house with a stick and walk away, head shaking, after finding zero pulse. It’s in a great location, but it was an old, neglected home. And by neglected, I mean flirting with decay. To make it habitable, we had to rewire the entire home because the electrics were shot. And so that we didn’t accidentally burn to death if someone casually switched on a basement fireplace, likely installed by some guy’s friend’s brother 25 years ago.

Notwithstanding the eviction of a gaze of racoons, and the beginning of what will probably be a lifetime of repairs, we moved in. Then my father-in-law passed away unexpectedly a few days later. But out of the dark haze of sadness popped a tiny firefly. You see, weeks prior I’d asked the adults in my little orbit to put their names on a wait list for codes to purchase gold-dust status Taylor Swift tickets for her upcoming concerts in Toronto. One by one, they reported nuh-uh, no codes here. Except for one person—me. I got one. I managed my own expectations, though. Of course I won’t get tickets, I reasoned, and even if I do, we can’t afford them. But how awesome would it be for me and my kid, and her bestie and her mom, to see Taylor?

The ticket-buying moment came, and reader, Katniss Everdeen herself would have crumbled under the pressure. They evaporated in seconds, but with shaking hands, I managed to purchase two. For someone like Drake, the amount could probably cover his bill for dinner last Tuesday. For us, it was a small fortune.

Sometimes she excitedly attempts to text in codes for me while I drive, with a glimmer in her eye, and then I see it

When I think back to telling my husband I got the tickets, I imagine him extracting water with a Shop-Vac out of our thrice-flooded basement. This wasn’t how I broke the news, but this is how I frequently picture my husband and I in our home—bailing out water, or putting out proverbial fires. He was rightfully wary about the cost on our credit card, but he thought it was exciting. “If things change, and we don’t want to go, I know we can sell the tickets, probably for a profit,” I rationalized. But I did want to go and I still want to go.

Here’s the agonizing bit. And I admit, it’s a multi-headed beast that probably requires therapy. For 15 months I’ve been keeping an account of all the reasons why keeping the tickets is a bad idea. Let’s start with a litany of the top ones: Is my daughter a massive enough Taylor Swift fan? Am I? Does the fact that we’ve never made the friendship bracelets disqualify us? I don’t know the lyrics to every song Taylor has ever written (though I know a lot), so surely I’m unworthy. How will this make my kid’s best friend feel? What about all those moms on Facebook pleading for tickets for their desperate tweens? The value of the tickets today is three times what we originally paid. This means that I could choose one much-needed home repair and address that instead. Or, it could pay for a family holiday. Better still, if I sold them days before the concert, I could cover my tuition at Centennial College, where I’d recently enrolled as a publishing student.

For over a year I’ve been feeling my daughter out, pretending to enter radio contests to win Taylor Swift tickets. Sometimes she excitedly attempts to text in codes for me while I drive, with a glimmer in her eye, and then I see it. I watch her manage her expectations as she turns toward the car window with a faraway expression, her face pressed up against the literal and proverbial glass. She’s probably thinking a teenage version of: in what universe could little old me join the cultural zeitgeist, and see today’s version of Elvis live in concert?

That’s where last week’s email comes in. The regular dispatch I get from a UK organization called the School of Life had the subject line, “How to be Selfish.” It’s not what you might think. The core of the missive explains that being good means putting others right at the centre of our lives. But for some of us, striving for this means we “run into an opposite danger: an abnegation of the self, a modesty that borders on self-erasure, an automatic impulse to give everything over to competing parties.” It’s not advising being mean or exploitative to others. It’s about coming to the end of your life and realizing there isn’t some reward for all your sacrifices waiting for you.

As a family, we are fortunate enough to be managing financially. I was lucky to get these tickets, so why do I feel so undeserving of them, and how am I subconsciously passing that feeling on to my daughter? Why am I abnegating myself and, by extension, her? She belongs there and so do I. Why not us?

At the end of our lives, we remember experiences and how it felt to be loved by the people we love. So, I’ve decided, coin flips aside, we’re going to go. And on that night, as the light refracts sequin stars off Taylor’s silhouette, I will look for that light in my daughter’s eyes and smile, and we’ll both remember how good it felt to choose “yes.”