if things were different

Do you ever wonder how your life would have turned out if things had been different?

Like what if my best friend hadn’t died when I was 15, what if I’d went to college, what if I’d went to university, what if I’d dated that person when I had the chance, what if I didn’t bail out of something I probably should have said yes to, what if I’d have gone to that party, what if I hadn’t stopped speaking to that person.

What if I’d turned out different.

If the choices you’ve made in life were ones you still would have made no matter the circumstances because they were so inherently true to yourself, then I guess you’d never ponder these questions. Some of my decisions in life have been the same – they were so inherently myself that I’ve never questioned them or wondered what would have happened if I’d chosen something else, because I never would have – you could put me back in that situation 100 times and I’d still make the same decision.

However, there are some things in my life (probably more than I’d like to admit) that I think about sometimes and wonder what I’d be doing now if things had turned out differently. They’re not regrets and they don’t keep me awake at night or anything, but sometimes if I’m reminded of a certain someone or something, my mind starts to wander and unravel and suddenly I’m presenting all of these different scenarios to myself and thinking, I wonder what things would have been like if you’d have been different. If you’d said yes, or no, or changed your mind, or said that thing you wanted to but never did – would you be happier? Would your life be better than it is? Some scenarios I can imagine and some I can’t, for some things, I guess I will always have to wonder what would have been because I genuinely don’t know and couldn’t even give a rough guess as to how they would’ve turned out, so those things will always be an unknown for me, but some things I can imagine – I can wonder and think about how my life would stand right now had I taken the chance.

The reason I think about them in the first place is because these things weren’t inherently myself, they weren’t decisions that I’d stand by in 10 years from now, they were decisions I made because I wasn’t so confident, or I was scared or wanting to run away from things and therefore I simply didn’t allow life to unfold as it should have done. I missed out on a lot of things, a lot of people – I don’t miss it, or them, but I do wonder about how things would have turned out had I taken the chance.

Everything happens for a reason and the universe has a plan for all of us, but sometimes we need to help ourselves out because we can’t expect things to just fall into our lap, and I think that’s where I went wrong. I wasn’t helping myself, I didn’t want to help myself, or maybe I did, maybe I thought I was, but looking back in hindsight they were the wrong decisions but at the same time, they were the only ones I could have made because I didn’t know anything else. I thought I was doing the right thing but looking back now I should have chosen differently, but like I said, I didn’t know anything else. I wasted too much time on things that I thought would fix whatever it was I was searching for, I missed my chances and it was always too late once things had gone up in flames – could I have prevented them? Of course. If I’d gotten out of my own head and stopped overthinking things to the point it drove me literally insane and left me unable to function then of course things could have been different, but what was I to do? I was so lost and there wasn’t a single person that could have helped me find myself even if they’d wanted to. I did the best I could with what I thought I knew which looking back on it now, I realise wasn’t a lot. I was scared.

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t hurt anybody, this is not about me making bad decisions that had consequences for others, but more…myself. I did it all to myself, and sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t ruined things that could have been saved. There are some things you just can’t get back no matter how much you want them, so they’ll have to live in my imagination instead.

I just needed to get this out today, there’s some weird coincidences that have been happening lately and it’s been confusing me a lot, I can’t figure out what the universe is trying to tell me but I hope I work it out soon. Right now it’s leading me to think about this – these little thoughts floating around my head that I need to get out into the world so that they feel like they exist, to prove that I acknowledged and even thought about them in the first place.

“The longing to ‘feel like your old self again’, but you never will because she is dead and perished. It was either her life or yours, and you chose to transform.”

All my love,

Chloe .xx