If I Chose Differently

What if somewhere there is another version of us living the life we almost chose?

Not a better life.
Not a worse one.
Just… different.

Sometimes I wish God would send me the DVD of mine.

The version where I chose differently.

The version where I stayed.
Where I never packed the suitcase.
Where I never got on the plane.
Where I never met certain people.
Where I said no instead of yes.
Where I walked away sooner.
Or never walked away at all.

I wonder what her face looks like now.

Would she still have the same sadness in her eyes?
Would she have more children?
Would she have stayed married longer?
Would she have lived a quieter life?
Would she still dream of the ocean?
Would she still feel restless every time she saw a road disappearing into the distance?

I think about this often because life unfolds in such strange ways.

One decision becomes another.
One move changes everything.
One person enters your life and suddenly years disappear.
One moment of survival quietly redirects your entire future.

And sometimes the biggest changes happen when you are too exhausted to even realize your life is changing.

You wake up years later and think:
How did I get here?

Not always in a bad way.
Not always in a good way either.

Just… honestly.

I have started over more times than I can count.
Different homes.
Different versions of myself.
Different dreams.
Different heartbreaks.
And every time I thought my life was collapsing, another path appeared somewhere I wasn’t even looking.

That’s the strange thing about human beings:
we are always mourning the lives we never lived while trying to survive the one we did.

And maybe that curiosity never leaves us.

Maybe all of us secretly want to sit alone one night, place that imaginary DVD inside a machine, and quietly watch the person we could have become if we had only chosen differently.