What If...

[howeird]

Had dinner with a friend last night. She could not believe my claim that I don't agonize over the past. "Don't you ever think 'what if'?", she asked me.

"Sure I do.", I replied, "but I don't spend sleepless nights in the throes of depression worrying about it. What's the point? Life goes on. You did what you did, you didn't do what you didn't do, and you're who, what and where you are now, so deal with it."

So with that in mind, here are some of my "What ifs":

1. What if my parents had allowed me to take private music lessons?
   
2. What if I had not thrown that rock at the bully in 5th grade, which got me put into a different, horrible, 6th grade class?
   
3. What if I had Done It with my high school girlfriend when she gave me the chance?
   
4. What if I had not broken up with my first college girlfriend? Would she still be alive today?
   
5. What if my first One True Love hadn't moved to Australia?
   
6. What if my second One True Love hadn't moved to Texas?
   
7. What if my third One True Love hadn't Dear John-ed me and moved in with her boss?
   
8. What if I had stayed that extra year in the Peace Corps?
   
9. What if the idiots in the Israeli visa department hadn't screwed up my application, and I'd have been able to accept the job offer to be an ophthalmological photographer at Hadassah Hospital?
   
10. What if I had been able to find my date at the Tel Aviv movie house that night?
    
11. What if I had gotten a job in San Francisco TV after college?
    
12. What if I'd been born with a different set of genes?
    

And the one that does haunt me from time to time:

What if I'd been born to a starving family in a Third World country?