Choose your own adventure, in life.

Why is it that sometimes after you break up with someone, you look back and think "what could have been"? Today is April 5th, 2010. My ex girlfriend and I broke up over 4-5 months ago. For me we had a pretty messy break up. I wanted to fight and try to make things work out. She wanted out. She had her reasons for breaking up with me. I still don't fully understand, nor do I think that I ever will. As I am on my way home I am thinking about a couple exes that seem to be fairly happy with their current situations, and I am happy for them. Really I am, but I can't help but think, "that could have been me". There was a girl in high school I briefly dated after graduation and I really liked her, she liked me. She went to school in another state, so we didn't really have a chance to develop a strong relationship. After a while she started dating the guy she's married to now. A couple years ago I was in Colorado for Thanksgiving, I met up with her, her husband and the rest of her family that I knew when we were growing up. The whole time I looked at her husband I thought, "man, that could have been me". For the record, this girl and get husband are pregnant with their first baby and I am happy for them.

I wonder to myself often, what could have been? Am I the only one that thinks that? There is no way I am. I feel like I am on the outside looking in. I mean I don't feel sorry for myself. I have made the decisions to get me to this point in my life. I guess all of us think, what could have been. Probably because we don't think of the pain that person put us through, we remember laughing at a dimly lit restaurant, kisses in the dark, and little inside jokes.

Are you like me and wish life was like a choose your own adventure book? If you want to go to the prom with Stacy go to page 32, if you want to go to the prom with Lisa go to page 25. I remember reading those books and thinking, what would have happened if we went down the path instead of going into the cave. Why can't life be like that. So I went to prom with Stacy, what if...? Why did I say that stupid thing, what if...?

Do you think that because one relationship ended, it was doomed no matter what? I mean on a deeper cosmic universe sense, I have always believed that you can learn something from everyone you interact with. Maybe, each adventure was supposed to happen so you'd be where you are now.

To quote my friend Ashlee Odglen Ellenbarger, "Oh life!"

Now turn to page 54 to see how it ends.