When I graduated from high school, I was carrying a 203 average in bowling. I really wanted to go pro and join the PBA, but my parents talked me out of it and into going to college instead.
I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I had stuck to my guns about the PBA.
I chose not to do a military term. The factors against it were that my hitch would have been in the aftermath of Viet Nam, perhaps one of the worst times to serve in the entire century, and that I had family obligations young, so they would have had to live an EM’s life. I had several friends who went in and without an exception, their response to my talk of joining up was to grab me by the throat and say “Don’t you fucking dare”… their experiences were that bad. Drugs, suicide, poverty, low morale, no focus or mission… one came home in a wheelchair from a training accident because the supervising officer was stoned; another came home on the spike and spent years trying to live a clean life.
My father, who served with some distinction in the AAF, told me this startling thing when I was 16: “I almost disowned your brother when he decided to “study in Canada.” I’ll disown you if you don’t.” (That is, if Vietnam was still going when I hit service age. It wasn’t.)
So I guess I chose the right road, but it bothers me being the first generation of my family not to serve. Always will.
I regret not getting my masters degree. After a year of work I applied for grad school, got in and was going to take 1-2 classes per term, and my employer was cool about adjusting my work hours. But I quit. I just wasn’t ready for the academic grind. Had I stuck it out, I would doubtlessly have wound up at a higher rank.
Romantically, the internet lets me check up on my lost loves. Only one could have panned out, but I love my children and she wouldn’t have given me the same kids, of course. So it worked out.
That sentence could have applied to my fork in the road as well. To cut to the chase, I was dating a woman I’ll call Alison, and we were together dating a woman I’ll call Bianca. Even at the best of times, polyamory is like walking a tightrope blindfolded. And I suppose that, inevitably, there comes a point where someone in the relationship thinks that this whole group thing isn’t working, and so that person starts to think about choosing one person over the other.
Now Alison was the woman I was dating first. She was the safe choice I guess, in that she did genuinely love me, held a steady job, was always honest with me. A good partner in life, even if she was upset that Bianca didn’t love her more than she loved Bianca, and even if she was withdrawn at times.
“Withdrawn” was the last word to describe Bianca. She was incredibly spontaneous, the kind of person who’d be driving you somewhere and suddenly turn off the highway because “that tree over there looks neat, I have to see it close up.” To be honest, she was trouble on legs and she’d tell you that up front. She had difficulties with personal relationships, spending habits, showing up to important things like work, and basically was never all really there. She’d been bankrupt once and was heading that way again. (Thank god she never once asked us for money. I think she realized that would go over like an atom bomb.) She’d “done things” in the past she didn’t like to talk about. Considering the things she did talk about, I can only imagine what those were. Alison believed in auras and sometimes said “Bianca’s aura is plaid.”
And despite Bianca’s visible craziness…there was something honestly, overpoweringly, alluring about her. First of all, no woman has ever made it clearer that she was hopelessly, madly devoted to me. In a thread a while back I said that the superpower I wanted was to be able to look at someone like they were the only person in the world. That was because of Bianca, because she had that look down. Bianca would do things like spend two hours straightening her hair–she had really long hair–because earlier I’d made an off-hand remark that she looked good with straight hair. She made a genuine effort to become interested in the things I was interested in. She’d sneak little glances and smiles at me just for no reason. And without being too graphic, she’d go after me in bed as if I were the last man on earth–and she responded to me as if she’d been plugged into a light socket. When I stepped away from Bianca, I had to silently tell myself, “Barring a miracle, I will never, ever find a woman that good in bed again.” I have to admit that for a while Bianca seemed like the better choice. Maybe I could put up with someone who was so obviously a lost soul because, honestly, she just made me feel so wanted. I’d been through two relationships and failed marriage where I’d never even felt close to wanted.
But crazy ended up beating allure. For a while Alison and I kept up things with Bianca, realizing that we were hurting each other, all three of us, and that things were really never going to work out, and trying to admit that we weren’t going to cause permanent damage to ourselves. And then Bianca cheated on us. Maybe. Or maybe she said she was going to cheat on us because she was afraid of losing me because…look, Bianca’s mind was a dangerous place, I am not going to try to go back in there. And, where before I’d suggested to Alison we break up with her because I was afraid Alison would be hurt, now I said it because I didn’t want to see Bianca again. And so I chose safety over uninhibited passion. I don’t doubt my choice.
In my own personal rom-com year, I dropped the tall, handsome, successful, funny lawyer who hailed from old money and adored me, and decided to marry the slightly shorter-than-average, balding, mad geek whose worldly possessions consisted of a harp, a couple sets of clothing, and a car that rarely worked. 23 years later we are still incredibly happy, he is a successful medical helicopter pilot, and still plays the harp beautifully.
The path not taken is on wife #3 and family number two. He seems happy, but it I absolutely made the right decision.
Similar here. I was most of the way into getting acceptance at the USAF academy, but didn’t formally accept due to a combination of teenage self-doubt and internal moral uncertainty about signing my rights away for the next 6+ years.
Who knows where I’d have been?
Not going into the military is probably the single biggest road not taken that I can think about in my life. I’d always grown up wanting to be a pilot or a paratrooper or possibly a tanker, but between my high school knee injury and the rather crazy fall of the Eastern Bloc and Soviet Union between my jr. year of high school and freshman year of college, I had visions of post-WWI military cutbacks, and decided that maybe without the threat of the Soviet Union, the military wasn’t for me. Little did I know that 1994-2014 would be a MUCH more busy 20 year period than the 1974-1994 period. Had I known that, I’d probably have gone ROTC or service academy and given it a shot.
Other than that, the usual girls I should have asked out, but never did, and other minor missed opportunities, but nothing huge.
In the summer of 97, I had a chance to go to the other side of the world to tour, and maybe stay and work with a props and makeup workshop. At the time, I had three years til I graduated, and I was more interested in stage management and scene design. I thought I would ‘be smart’ and finish school, that the opportunity would still be there - it wasn’t that much later.
When I did graduate, in 2000, the chance was long gone - the workshop? WETA. They were deep into LoTR, and I cried like a friggin baby when I found out they were working on it.
Now, I still DO like stage management and costuming better than I like props work, but I adore makeup, and I still wonder whether I would have had a chance at proving myself there. I especially think about this when I get sick of being too poor to afford makeup or costuming supplies, or when I’ve dealt with the 8th or 9th grumpy library patron in a row. I know realistically I probably wouldn’t have lasted beyond the tour and workshop, but what if…
On the other hand, I now have an amazing close-knit group of friends, a college degree in theatre and a masters in library science both paid for, and a dearly beloved husband, none of which would be true if I had hopped on a plane in the summer of 1997 to New Zealand.
Thank you. I wrote it in my head while waiting for people to answer the phone. They usually don’t and as I’m not allowed any distractions I spend much of my day listening to the voices in my head, then come here and do a brain dump on you folks so I can sleep. I’d blog, but so much of what I write is personal and detailed and people might recognize themselves, and I don’t want to hurt anybody. This one is generic and spanned a total of a few minutes forty years ago and much of it went on in my head, so I’m not worried. But the one about the friend driving her dead…no, I said too much. Wish I could say more.
I am thankful this thread is going nicely and look forward to your story.
If I could stomach living in California, I could have continued in computer animation.
I feel that way about Florida.
I regret that I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with myself when I went to college. I had great grades, and barring any real ambition I followed a friend to her college just so I’d know somebody. I don’t regret that part–It was a good school, and I met my spouse there and had some of the best years of my life. But I wish I’d picked a different major, and maybe done something about continuing my education past bachelor’s degree level. I was a political science/international relations major, and to this day I’m not sure exactly why. I should have been an English major. Wouldn’t have made any difference to my career–English is more in line with it than PoliSci, but I’d have likely ended up in the same place. But I think I would have been happier academically as an English major.
I also regret that I didn’t pursue fiction writing more seriously at a younger age. I’ve been writing since I was a kid, but always just for myself and friends. If I’d known then what I know now, I’d have been submitting more stories and trying harder to get freelance gigs with game companies.
I said, “I am thankful this thread is going nicely.” This is a bump because I’m sure there are plenty more stories out there that people are too embarrassed, or smart, to tell anybody in real life.
take a word of warning from this song.
Man, she ugly, but she sure can cook!
Told this story here before, but it fits the whole ‘Crossroads’ thing.
Back in the mid to late 90’s, I was a Consultant (Computer Programming) for an insurance company. I had gotten the job because I knew the Director from a previous job where he was my manager.
On day my young manager got hit by a car crossing the street on a vacation in San Diego. Completely wiped him out. They moved him back to his parent’s farm in Iowa where he could learn to eat, walk, speak, all over again.
My Director came to me and offered me the job. No interview, just ‘do you want it’. However, here comes the catch. I would be required to wear a suit and tie at all times. It was a requirement to wear the suit coat any time I was away from my desk. I would also be required to be there from 6am to 6pm Monday to Friday, and was told that this would be 100% meetings and any time I needed to manage my people would be over and above this, “so expect to work 80-90 hours a week”. The kicker was the pay. $75,000 a year.
Well the problem with that was at the time, I was working 25 hours a week at $32 an hour, or @$40,000 per year. I couldn’t reconcile the amount of time and the requirements of the job with making not quite twice as much money.
So I turned it down.
Instead they hired this other clown, who set about forcing all of us consultants to either join his firm (where he would both set our wage and make money off of us) or leave. Since I had a non-compete clause, I had to go. (How the fuck the company let him get away with this is another story. Because I told them what was going on and they didn’t blink.)
Of course, since I left the field in 2001 with severe burnout and a major stress related back injury, after suffering periodic ulcers and other stress issues before that, I honestly expect that I would have either had to quit that job or I would have taken my own life.
During the 10 year period I was out of IT and working crap jobs, that ‘crossroad’ was always at the back of my mind. Did I screw up a chance to be so much more?
“So much more?” As in “sick, crazy, or dead?” I’m a fine one to give career advice so I won’t, but I think you can read my feelings.
Was catching up with LinkedIn and Facebook today. Tempted to tell some of the guys I worked with in the old days that I’ve been sober a couple years. And got a Facebook “Do you know?” from a different girl from high school and said, “Yes, I do.” I looked her up a few years ago (boredom, vodka, and Google don’t mix) and I like her photography, so we’ve spoken more than we did in school (“some” versus “not at all”). I’m not looking for anything Like That. It’s just nice to have friends and I mostly don’t like guys.
Had a college girlfriend/almost-fiancee (well, we weren’t engaged, but we would drive around and look at houses “we could live in”), but something just didn’t seem right about her. I broke up with her without having a concrete reason. And it bothered me that maybe I hadn’t given her a fair shake…
Fast forward thirty years and she’s writing anti-Obama screeds, about how he’s letting the the poor force us all into giving half our cash to the gub’mint, when if we just let them die like nature intended, then the Haves could keep their rightful reward.
When I heard that, a number of puzzle pieces fell into place. I think she was missing an ‘empathy’ circuit deep in her brain. Heard about that from her brother (with huge eye-rolls), andf we both laughed that I’d dodged a bullet there!
Let’s see:
[ol]
[li]Screwed around my last two years of high school and barely graduated.[/li][li]Went into then military first and THEN went to college when it would have made far more sense to do the opposite.[/li][li]Went for the job which I wanted to do in the military but for which I had only a middling ASVAB score. Should have gone for a position that I could make a living doing on the outside[/li][li]Wasted years working for companies when contract employment paid far better.[/li][li]Didn’t just say “eff it” grab a backpack and travel the world.[/li][/ol]
Oh well…
Can’t go back.
Got to go ahead.
I chose my wife over a wild blond amazon. Always wondered what happened to her. So I finally googled her the other day… she’s dead.