My Fall

I've been wanting to do a two part post (C.S. Lewis style - read Mere Christianity, maybe you'll get it) about revisiting our past.

The first part deals with wanting to go back and change the past. I honestly don't know if everybody wants to do this but I know I'm not the only one. And I know everyone has regrets of one kind or another. I mean, I have a really great life, but some people have really messed up theirs. Wouldn't you want to go back and change it if things were as bad for you as they are for some people?

The question is, would you know how? I think movies and books about time travel are amazing because they are thinkers. Each path you take branches out into literally millions more: can you really say that changing just one thing will have the effect you want?

I don't. But what I do know is that things would be different. I would love to be able to go back, having lived my life, and not do something or change how I did something, and the relive it. It's important to be able to remember how you did things the first time, because otherwise, when you get to the end of your new road, you may want to go back and try again and always be bouncing between the two lives you've lived.

Now, since this is all theoretical anyway, I want to get to the main point: where I messed up. Honestly, I can't say that my life is really bad right now. But I feel like it could be better. And I've always been able to pinpoint exactly what instant of time I would change if given the chance. The lucky day used to be in my junior year of high school.

However, that has been superceded by the fall of my junior year of college. Fall has always been a special time for me. I stand in the wind, and it feels like something's coming. What that is, I don't know. But looking back, I think something really was headed toward me that fall. How could I have known it then? I guess I lied earlier, because I'm not sure exactly what point that semester I would have changed, but I think my reactions to the events that followed could have been better.

I've often said that in the winter of my junior year I underwent a personality change. Now I think that assessment is a little harsh. But I began to adapt my expectations as a result of the changing world around me. A door closed, and I suddenly became the perfect little accountant everyone always knew I would be. A friend left, and I tried to replace her with false hopes and someone who could never even come close. And so on...

Essentially, I wonder where I would be today had I not done some of the things I did. What I want to know is exactly how much that one semester affected me.

Now, this probably sounds very negative, and I don't want anyone to get the wrong ideas. I'm a thinker, so I have to think about 'would have beens' 'could have beens' and 'what ifs.' Because where I am right now is probably better than most of the other roads I could have gone down. And it can only get better from here (not because I'm in a rut, but because I believe in continual personal development...and now I'm talking like a girl again, so I better end the post).