I’ve been playing the “what if” game a lot lately. I keep trying to figure out how my life got so off track. I’m second-guessing every decision I ever made — big ones, little ones, in-between ones. But mostly, it’s the big ones. For example…
What if I’d gone away to college rather than attending university right here at home?
Well, the downside would be the inevitable negative impact on my relationship with my parents and my brother. We’ve grown really close, as adults, these past few years and I know I wouldn’t have that. On the upside, I most likely would have had many more career opportunities upon graduation and would have thought a little “bigger”.
What if I’d never gotten married?
Wow. Now this one I could go on about forever. So I’ll try and just stick to the one aspect of this question that’s haunting me right now. If I had never gotten married, even if I’d gone to college locally, I so would have moved far, far away from here when I graduated. I would be in the big city somewhere with a completely different life. And the thought of that is very appealing to me right now. Very appealing.
What if I’d never gotten divorced?
Maybe that should read “What if I’d never had reason to get divorced?”. What if we’d met later in life? Or what if he’d meant his vows as much as I meant mine? Or what if I’d been the right girl? We’d be happy. In the traditional sense like my parents are happy. We’d work these ridiculously long hours like we work now, but it wouldn’t matter because at the end of the day, we’d go home together. We’d spend Sundays sleeping late and seeing a double feature at the movies. We’d take trips and talk about taking other trips. We’d make plans.
I haven’t written much lately because I’ve been in such a negative mood and I didn’t want to depress everybody else with my little pity party. It’s just that, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m a planner. And it’s so hard to sit back and look at my life now and realize that absolutely nothing is as I thought it would be. And even worse, very little is as I think it should be.
So I struggle now with decisions that should be simple ones because I’m afraid. I don’t trust my own judgment and I’m terrified that one more wrong turn will take me even further into this place I really don’t want to be in. But I know that I have to keep making the choices and taking the chances, because, one of these days, I’m going to get it right.
damaged calm 
Hey – thanks for those blog suggestions the other day. I think I like Scratched Pearl best of the 3, probably b/c of the site design.
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Hey Kim!
I do that a lot too. And I know it sounds cliche, but I think you learn from everything that happens, whether good or bad. Like relationships- every broken one cements what you like and don’t like about a potential mate.
Thanks for being candid.
Drkmc
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I’m pretty bad at the pep-talk crap, but you know there’s no point in second guessing all your decisions. God works in mysterious ways. Just kidding you, I don’t even believe in god. You can start thinking bigger now, if that’s what you want, and the Doc is right, you learn a little or a lot from each turn you make in life. I’ve recently decided that I can make my life whatever I want it to be, if I would just get off my ass and do it! There’s the rub, huh?
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This was a really heartfelt blog and very much enjoyed reading it. (thanks Cindy-Lou for linking to this)
This may sound lame, but have you seen the Butterly Effect? (wow.. I am making a lot of Ashton Kutcher movie references today..hmm) That movie turned me OFF from ever wanting to change my past. We all think about “what if” but let’s start thinking “what next!”.. c’mon folks “you can’t move forward if you are looking back”..”shit or get off the pot”…. I totally need my own talk show 🙂
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Kim, I have to agree with the above. I am going through a major time in my life (seperating from my husband)and I understand how it feels to be second-guessing the choices you have made in life. But like D-Nice said, you can’t change the past. You can learn from it, though. It was like I woke up one day and looked around at how miserable I was. I realized that I was not where I wanted to be and couldn’t figure out how I ended up here. I realized that up to that point, I was making choices that I thought were the “right” thing to do. Or choices that would make other people happy. I don’t know when I thought I was going to live for myself. But that day was when I made that choice. I made the choice that I hadn’t even lived half of my life yet. And I was going to make the rest of it count. Because if you aren’t living to make yourself happy, then what’s the point. Obviously it won’t always be happy hunky-dory, but at least when I am miserable, I will be confident that I will be able to find a way to fix it…sorry I am totally rambling, your post just really hit home!
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