The Path Not Taken

With the stores festooned in red and pink and people discussing their Valentine’s Day plans, it’s hard not to think about my love. I know, vomit. While we always say we will not partake in a silly holiday made up by Hallmark to sell cards between Christmas and Easter, I will still inevitably receive a box of chocolate covered strawberries at work on the day. We loudly and proudly proclaim that every day is Valentine’s Day in our house; hugs, kisses and “I love you” fly around like geese in Canada around here. Not a day goes by that we don’t do one nice thing for each other, but, admittedly, he is better at it than me. He grocery shops because he knows I hate it. When he hears my car drive into the garage, he turns on the faucet in our bathroom because it takes a few minutes for the water to warm up and he knows that the first thing I like to do is wash the day off my face when I get home. If I’m running late in the morning, I will run downstairs to find my breakfast, lunch, coffee, and filled water bottle on the counter, so that all I have to do is run out the door. Because my success is his success, and vice versa. I proofread his work stuff and he helps me with my spreadsheets. Real love is lifting each other up and striving to achieve together, celebrating the wins and talking through the losses. After eighteen years together and almost thirteen married, love and marriage takes forethought and work. It’s a choice, at this point. How can you make your partner’s day just a little brighter?

Those who are close to us know that our relationship thrives on humor (you’ve seen our Christmas cards, right?) In a crowd, we can be found whispering inappropriate jokes to each other and cracking up at the most inopportune times imaginable. Our advice to the newly married is always, “keep it funny.” So what, you ask, has brought on this sudden bout of mushiness? I can assure you that it’s not the little holiday looming around the corner. I am about seventy-five percent through the newest book by my favorite author, Jodi Picoult, and she always, without fail, has the ability to make me think about things I’ve never thought about before, which I suppose is why I like her so much, because how are we growing if we don’t have an existential crisis every now and then? The book focuses on the life of one woman, how she set out on a path in life, so sure of who she was and where she was going, only to be blindsided by a single event that put her completely in another direction. Wild, right? I mean, I know it’s not a new concept. They made an entire Ashton Kutcher movie about the theory, for crying out loud. But, have you really thought about it? How far back could you go? It’s a dangerous road to start walking on, and I recommend being confident in where you are before you try it. It can definitely lead to feelings of regret and possibly a mid-life crisis. If you are one of the unlucky ones, you could wind up crying for your mom, curled up in the fetal position.

What if I hadn’t moved to Boston after graduation? Would I have met the man who would become my future husband? Were we fated to find each other or was it the product of a single decision? It goes beyond that, though. If I hadn’t gone to college, if I hadn’t met my other loves, my friends, who convinced me to move to Boston with them, I would have lived an entirely different life. My kids wouldn’t be my kids, because any children I had would have been half me and half someone else. It really is crazy to think about. But alas, there is still the big one. The one that kept me up for the better part of the night when I originally had the thought: my mother. Most of you who follow this little hobby of mine have by now read about the saga that was my childhood. Thanks for that, by the way. While I didn’t tell the story for the money, it gave me a little extra pocket money for Christmas this year and we definitely needed all the joy we could get our hands on by the end of 2020. Anyway, what if my mother’s death could have been prevented? What if she got out?

My head almost exploded on this one. I probably would have grown up in the south. I would have gone to an over-crowded school in the city instead of a half empty one in a small town. Maybe my teachers wouldn’t have cared as much or told me I was smart. College? For some reason, I don’t envision that when I think about what life would have been like as a member of the original family I was dealt, but I could be wrong. Would I give up all the good that happened just to see her one more time? You bet. Would my brother and I still be close, without the shared trauma? I hope so. On the flip side, of course, I could have been more. A doctor, maybe. I was smart enough. I love Grey’s Anatomy, after all. What if I had made just one small adjustment in college, changed my major, made better contacts? Could I have been put on a path to become someone important? Possibly. Does it matter? I’m not so sure anymore. I once thought I had to do something really special to make up for all the time she didn’t get, to be the woman that she didn’t have a chance to become, but holy hell, that’s a lot of pressure. Sometimes, in our quest to for more and better, we forget about the good in the here and now. I am lucky, so much luckier than my mother was. Whatever path it was that got me here, broken and veering off into a black hole at times, I’m grateful for the person it made me. Maybe there’s an alternate universe where we all made one different choice and are living a completely different life because of it. I’m pretty sure that’s a physics theory, but it’s not my forte. The grand question is, is it the path not taken, or the one we’re meant to be on? In the grand scheme of things, who cares? Go on and celebrate that stupid holiday with the one you love and steal yourself a little piece of joy on this path here and now.