The devil you know

"Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know" This was a saying my mother used a lot; at least, I remember her saying it to me, a lot. I don't remember her living by that saying. And I certainly don't, nor did I ever.

She used it, to emphasize her recommendation to stay in a job I didn't like, rather than move to a new one. 

Another of her sayings meant pretty much the same thing, "Out of the frying pan into the fire." Essentially a warning to be cautious. There are many other sayings along the same vein. 

She was selective in her use, I know this because she didn't trot these sayings out when I told her I was going to work in London, I was eighteen years old. I don't know how she felt about it, but she drove me to the boat, gave me ten Irish pounds and waved goodbye. She didn't say it years later, when I told her I was breaking up with my then husband. I suspect she wondered why I stayed so long in that particular frying pan. 

She didn't say it when I decided, in my late forties, to emigrate to the USA. I suspect she believed it was a mistake on my part and I would return quickly. Probably, at that stage in her life, having raised six children and spent the best years of her life battling her own disastrous marriage, she had decided we should be left to make our own decisions. Or perhaps she agreed with me that there was no reason for me to stay in Ireland at that point. And, at the time, it was the right decision. Almost twenty-nine years later there are so many things I regret about leaving, but I would do it again, even with all that hindsight. There is always a price to pay. Some things are worth the price.

If I could change anything it would be to have been able to achieve all that I did in the last 28 years, without leaving Ireland—but then I remember, the weather. I chose to come to Texas to escape the constant gray skies, perpetual drizzling rain and, though it was rarely freezing cold, it was equally rarely very warm. To quote my husband's favorite saying, "wish in one hand..."

So, no regrets

Of these five, I can honestly say I don't entertain any of them. I stayed in touch with the friends who mattered to me. And I worked hard for a number of years, by choice, to achieve the life I now enjoy. And by facing the devil I didn't know—and jumping out of the frying pan, I achieved 1, 3 and 5. I know that I would not have otherwise. My advice to myself, and anyone who cares to listen  has always been, "Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained". It still is.