Non-Fiction / Spiritual

We all make choices in life. We all make decisions. Every single day.

What if you could go back to a pivotal moment in your own life and change something you did, something you said, a choice you made? What if our lives had System Restore Points like Windows XP? What if every single decision you ever made had an undo button? What if you could choos again? Would you take more chances?

This got me thinking... What if I'd never left England? What if I'd never moved to Northern Ireland? What if I hadn't been a miserable bastard that night, and had gone out clubbing with the lads, and those ropey looking girls from Bristol that they met in Ibiza the month before? What if I hadn't stayed up all night on IRC for the first time in years?

What if I hadn't met Caroline?

Where on earth would I be now? I wouldn't be sitting in a tiny bungalow in the middle of fucking nowhere. I wouldn't be sitting in my girlfriend's parents' living room typing this into a geriatric second-hand Toshiba laptop, that's for sure. Not that I'm complaining, you understand. I do like it here. The air is clean, the rain is made of water, and the people are simple, friendly, and uncomplicated. It's like the 60's didn't happen.

But what if I hadn't left that rainy little island for this smaller, slightly rainier one? What if I'd stayed at that miserable little company I was working for, designing boring websites for senile old women and crazy Asian businessmen? What if I'd continued to spend my days under fluorescent lighting, breathing hot stale air in a tiny internal office full of overheating web servers named after various star systems? What if I'd persevered in trying to get a Micro$oft webserver to do anything sensible?

But I know the answer to that. The company went out of business. I'm not sure whether it was my departure that sparked the domino effect mass-exodus of most of the senior staff. I'm sure that would've happened anyway, after all, I was only a Webmonkey. One of two... You will be assimilated.... We are bored

So then, what if I'd taken that tech support job offer from The Ideal Home Shopping Channel? What if I'd left my sweaty little desk job to pander to the computational needs of amber faced, cap-toothed, bouffant blonde tv types? What if I'd been on call 24/7 looking after a multi-million pound, digital live broadcast system I knew nothing about? What if I'd taken the job I bullshitted my way into?

I know the answer to that too because the building burnt down. The whole kit and caboodle. The channel went off the air, and as an interesting sideline, one of the employees went missing and was later found dead in another employees garden shed. Which would, no doubt, have been interesting to have been involved in, though hardly the career move of the century!

So am I happy with my choices? You're damn right I am. Northern Ireland is much more chilled than you might imagine. I have a neat little traveling PC repair job. It doesn't pay much, but the cost of living here is much lower than back home. I don't intend on settling here permanently, but I'm gonna stay as long as this crazy little place holds my fickle, MTV-bred attention.

for me, the most crushing aspect of the big What If is that i cannot pick a point. by my own standards i consider myself a failure in terms of my goals. anything that i really really want to do is restricted to me. cows, grass. what decision did i make that started it all? i dont think it was my decision to make. i try as hard as i am comfortable with. that is pretty good for some things like this website and not good enough for other things like doing well at school or at work.

i did read a poem the other day that haunted me for several hours afterwards. since i have it right here in front of me, i am going to TRAMPLE ALL OVER COPYRIGHT LAWS and quote it. you only live once right?

inference

when you hear a list of the things
most people wish they could do
before they die,
you will really hear a list
of the things they will most
regret missing when

they actually do.

^{from every day we humans by christopher cunningham, showerhead press, 2002}

that poem has me recognizing that i am about to pass up opportunities when i get layed off here in a month. i dont have a big purse or anything, but i will be holding it down financially enough to not take the first job i get offered just because it pays money.

if i play my cards right, i have a chance to cross off one or two of the things i regret not having done yet.

Postscript:

Caroline left me for a 40 year old. I'm now back in England working for the same company i was when i left :-(

this isn't why i love my current boyfriend but it's worth noting that he has been the most vocal in the last two years about wishing i would go back to the way i wrote before. and being frustrated that i self-censor so much now.