What Ifs.

I think this answers a few of Tony's prompts...

There comes a point in panic when a physiological reaction causes a choice to be made between fight or flight. In my own way, I've always chosen to fight, to rebel against the rising tide, to emerge optimistic against all instincts suggesting otherwise. Life is a game played against fate, tempting and teasing and willing what might be. The fiction of control is alluring which is why fun can be had in asking what if.

What if my parent's never left that 3-bedroom brick house on that quiet street smack in the middle of the middle west in that town that was nestled by quiet corn fields and filled with the friendly people whose ancestors poured blood sweat and tears into that land and never complained about it. What if they hadn't moved our family of three little princesses to the shadows of the mighty Wrigley Field and then so quickly afterward introduced us to the foreign shadows of suburban strip malls. What if they hadn't plucked me out of high school and transported me to the tundra filled with the proud, judgmental and righteous Nordic people who taught me how to make lefsa and how to find fault in everyone.

What if I hadn't scored one point shy of perfect on that standardized test. What if I hadn't chosen my college by picking it out of a hat. What if I hadn't marched into the academic counselor's on my third day of class and demanded to abandon my pre-med major for something less concrete. What if I had said yes to the ex-convict when he asked me to marry him. What if the pregnancy that prompted that question had been real and not imagined. What if I hadn't said goodbye to the sorority. What if I had taken that grant to spend a year at Stanford studying my favorite authors.

What if I hadn't fallen in love with the architect on night much like tonight. We emerged from that comedy club to a world blanketed in white, snow was still falling, accumulating rather rapidly. In the thirty steps it took to reach his hand-me-down truck, my ill chosen footwear was already soaked through by the icy winter. He turned to me in the middle of the street that no more than six hours later would be filled with obnoxious public transit and thousands of people strangely eager to arrive to work on time. But then, at that moment, it was quiet. The fellow comedy club patrons had seemed to dissapear and it was just he and I. He turned towards me, my frozen sock-less feet sinking slowly into the soft snow, and he kissed me in a way that I will never forget. And suddenly, I was in love.

And I wish I could say that as soon as it began, it was over but those ten months we spent together dragged on and on. When it was actually and finally over, I could hardly believe it. I suppose that's the odd thing about being in a relationship that you know has a finite ending date, August 1, you get the chance to cheesily live "like every day is your last". That was true to some extent because I did and said things that before then, I wouldn't have. I was really truly myself when he was around because there was nothing more to lose. I never for a moment entertained the fantasy that he might stay or ask me to come with him. This wasn't a Jane Austen novel, it was my ordinary life. You know, for as much as I was able to be myself around him, I also have to admit that given the finality of the ever approaching August 1, we managed to only enjoy the good part of a relationship. We never fought, never disagreed and admittedly, never really knew each other. There was no reason to bring up the past and since there was no foreseeable future, we lived purely in the moment. It was beautiful and magnificent and also heartbreaking that I could never share anything more with him.

Now, every few months we pen novel-length emails across the continents with life updates and perpetuate gossip about mutual friends. He's been back a few times but we've always missed actually connecting, the first time because I was out of town and the second time because I was scared about how it might make me feel.

If he ever permanently returned I have no idea what I would do because life and what we expect from it has changed so much for both of us. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that what we had before wasn't real.