decisions, decisions

"You are everything I never knew I always wanted."

Yeah, another movie quote. So sue me. That's my thing.

What do you call decisions you wish you could have made but didn't because circumstances dictated they would have been the wrong decisions at the time, yet if you could make them now, in your current circumstances, you just might? It's not regret. That would mean that I wish I'd made a different decision, and I don't. It wasn't even a choice, really. It was simply not an option to be entertained. I just did what was right for my life at the time. Had I not, I most certainly would not have the life I have now, which is pretty good, and which, ironically, could possibly have afforded me the luxury of making that fateful decision. I'm being vague and confusing, right?

It doesn't matter. The point isn't what that decision was, but what you'd call this "what if?" feeling. Maybe it is just as simple as "what if?" Maybe I'm overthinking it. But that's just me. I like to think, "What would it be like now if things had been different then, if I'd been in a position to make different choices?" Obviously it would be different, but how? And what would my life be like if I were in a position to make that decision today?

It's not even a matter of "If I knew then what I know now," because it's not what I know necessarily. It's where I am, who I am. No matter what I knew back then, that decision, that "choice," as it were, would have been a bad one. Or at least not a good one. This is the first time in my life I feel as if I would be qualified to make that decision, and it's simply not an option, for many reasons. It's like saying "You can't get there from here." A Catch-22, even. Or like the cruel irony of youth being wasted on the young. Only this isn't exactly cruel. It makes me a little sad, maybe a touch melancholy. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I think makes me appreciate the circumstances I've wandered into by not making that decision.

It's all good. The decisions (and lack thereof) that have led me to where I am now -- I'd consider them the right ones. For me. At the time. In my circumstances. If I had them to make now, in this life, in these circumstances, I might choose differently. And just knowing that, strangely, is enough. Maybe that's because it has to be enough; I'll never know. But it is, and that's OK. And it still makes me smile.