What if … ?

No matter how happy we are, we all look back from time to time and wonder what might have been. There are many things that might trigger these kinds of thoughts, which could include going through something difficult, running into someone from the past, or just simple curiosity. We have to make decisions every day that affect our futures in some way and it’s only natural to imagine what would have happened if you had chosen differently or if something had gone in a slightly different way.

In addition to the decisions we make, we begin to wonder what little things happen every day that change our lives without us even realizing it. Unlike in our own lives, we can often clearly see the different possibilities available for the characters in a book or a film. For example, we have all seen a film where the main character misses out on his chance to confess his love for someone all because he was two minutes too late. Meanwhile, the object of his affection remains completely oblivious to it all. The film Sliding Doors goes that much further and actually shows us the two different ways Gwyneth Paltrow’s character’s life would go depending on whether or not she got on the train in time. It’s crazy to think that one seemingly insignificant, albeit annoying, moment such as missing a train could completely change our lives, but it’s impossible to ever really know.

My partner likes to blame leaving the house five minutes later than he would have liked for getting stuck behind a slow driver. I respond to his frustration by saying he could have just as easily got stuck behind a different slow driver five minutes before, but he doesn’t tend to agree. For better or worse, I have a romantic mind and I am always inclined to believe that everything happens for a reason. My thoughts often run away with me and, in this case, I start to think of the various other possibilities that we might have avoided because we left a little later than planned; maybe we would have got in an accident and one or both of us could have been seriously hurt. Then I start thinking about how I couldn’t bear to lose him and have to shake myself out of it before I actually get upset over an imagined situation.

The decisions we’ve made are easier to look back on and criticize, though, than possibilities that we can’t ever be sure about or don’t even know existed. Lately, decisions I’ve made in the past that have had an impact on me financially have been coming back to haunt me. The fact that I actually cannot legally work at the moment has a great deal to do with this. In particular, there are three decisions that keep popping back up: I went to an out of state university; I chose to finish my degree without finishing my teaching certification; and, at some point during what was supposed to be a month there, I decided to drop everything, stay in Spain and have yet to go back and live in the USA. However, no matter how many times I think about these choices, I always come to the same conclusion. I wouldn’t do it any differently. They were exactly the choices I needed to make at those points of my life and now I just have to deal with the consequences.

I believe that my choices have led me to where I am today and although my current situation isn’t easy, I have to believe that it will all work out in the end. Going to the university I did, along with countless other consequences, led to studying abroad in Seville, Spain and meeting the people I met there. Not finishing my teaching certification led to not jumping into a teaching position right after university and possibly still being there today. Both of these choices contributed to my decision to go back to Spain and take the one month TEFL/TESOL course, and choosing to stay in Spain after completing that course led to meeting the person I truly believe I’m meant to be with. If I had chosen differently in even one of these instances, I probably would be in a much better position financially, but I could also still be waiting for my soulmate to come along. My partner, in a somewhat uncharacteristically positive way of looking at things, says we’re meant to be and even if it hadn’t happened when it did, we would have found each other eventually. Although I think this is very sweet and would like to agree, I’d rather not tempt fate and I am very happy we met each other when we did.

Perhaps it’s what Robert Frost talks about in “The Road Not Taken” and for whatever reason I need to look back and say that I chose the right road even though the other one was just as good. I suppose it’s possible that I could have ended up right here even if I had originally chosen a different path. On the other hand, maybe the road I chose truly has made all the difference.