Posted by Dwight-and-Aileen on Dec 1, '05 1:39 PM for Dwight-and-Aileen's friends and Dwight-and-Aileen's family
A couple of days ago, Dwight and I watched The Family Man on TV.
Nicolas Cage plays a fast-lane investment broker in Wall Street. Very successful, very rich, president of the company and very cocky too. On christmas eve, days before he was to pull off this million-dollar merger, he receives a phone call from a woman he almost married. He also met this thug, and with a gun pointed at him, tells him he has everything he needs. The next day he woke up next to his girlfriend, in some sort of parallel universe, in a 12-year marriage. He apparently got a glimpse of what his life would have been like -- if he had married her .... a house in new jersey (a far cry from the place he had in New York), 2 kids, bowling trophies, a job at his in-law's tire shop and a whole lot of love from his wife.
And I thought, that was so fascinating --- the "what-ifs" come to life. Knowing what would have happened if you'd gone down this path or that, or if you'd said this or done this or not done that.
Then Aileen posted an entry about when people cry ....
"when people cry, many times it's about love ...
the memory of it. its absence, its reminder.
its threat of being lost. its overwhelming presence."
And she added, also "for love unexpressed and for love that could never be".
That got me into thinking about my own "what-ifs" in my life ... what if I hadn't gotten married? what if we stayed home? what if I didn't take that assignment in Ormoc? what if I didn't say yes? what if I chose to be with somebody else? what if we didn't make up after that big fight we had? and the what-ifs kept coming ....
I think it is just human nature to wonder what things might have been like.
Before, back in college, I used to spend a lot of time thinking about the ways my life could’ve been, and I realize that for every decision I’ve made, there’s an alternate course I could’ve followed. So that the “almosts” of my life probably number into the millions or gazillions. And I had trouble sleeping because of that. I wasn’t sleeping I guess, I was crying and I was having conversations with myself that all seemed to start with “what if…” and worse, many of these conversations started around midnight, which a lot of people say, is when we do our most constructive thinking! how true? ... there's goes those sleep nights.
There are so many things that trigger us into thinking about those what-ifs ... reminders of what could have been ... fragments of our memory, banked in the recesses of our minds.
Yet, each of us is presented with myriads of choices every day, and if we chose one, we throw the other out the window. The most important thing about these choices is not regretting the "almosts". Life offers no guarantees ... each and every day we face unknowns. So much energy and precious time (and sleep!) is wasted on things that we no longer have control over, things that are no longer likely to happen.
When we got married, I remember asking Dwight what-ifs about our relationship ... about what might have happened to us. And he said that it's not the what-ifs that concern him. There are millions of "what-ifs" out there and he's dead-sure that he'd find me somehow. And besides, he added, "we don't really need the what-ifs right now, we're married, i love you and you love me, you're in my arms right now, that's what's most important. Never mind the what-ifs, the "what is" is more than enough. "
Nicolas Cage plays a fast-lane investment broker in Wall Street. Very successful, very rich, president of the company and very cocky too. On christmas eve, days before he was to pull off this million-dollar merger, he receives a phone call from a woman he almost married. He also met this thug, and with a gun pointed at him, tells him he has everything he needs. The next day he woke up next to his girlfriend, in some sort of parallel universe, in a 12-year marriage. He apparently got a glimpse of what his life would have been like -- if he had married her .... a house in new jersey (a far cry from the place he had in New York), 2 kids, bowling trophies, a job at his in-law's tire shop and a whole lot of love from his wife.
And I thought, that was so fascinating --- the "what-ifs" come to life. Knowing what would have happened if you'd gone down this path or that, or if you'd said this or done this or not done that.
Then Aileen posted an entry about when people cry ....
the memory of it. its absence, its reminder.
its threat of being lost. its overwhelming presence."
And she added, also "for love unexpressed and for love that could never be".
That got me into thinking about my own "what-ifs" in my life ... what if I hadn't gotten married? what if we stayed home? what if I didn't take that assignment in Ormoc? what if I didn't say yes? what if I chose to be with somebody else? what if we didn't make up after that big fight we had? and the what-ifs kept coming ....
I think it is just human nature to wonder what things might have been like.
Before, back in college, I used to spend a lot of time thinking about the ways my life could’ve been, and I realize that for every decision I’ve made, there’s an alternate course I could’ve followed. So that the “almosts” of my life probably number into the millions or gazillions. And I had trouble sleeping because of that. I wasn’t sleeping I guess, I was crying and I was having conversations with myself that all seemed to start with “what if…” and worse, many of these conversations started around midnight, which a lot of people say, is when we do our most constructive thinking! how true? ... there's goes those sleep nights.
There are so many things that trigger us into thinking about those what-ifs ... reminders of what could have been ... fragments of our memory, banked in the recesses of our minds.
Yet, each of us is presented with myriads of choices every day, and if we chose one, we throw the other out the window. The most important thing about these choices is not regretting the "almosts". Life offers no guarantees ... each and every day we face unknowns. So much energy and precious time (and sleep!) is wasted on things that we no longer have control over, things that are no longer likely to happen.
When we got married, I remember asking Dwight what-ifs about our relationship ... about what might have happened to us. And he said that it's not the what-ifs that concern him. There are millions of "what-ifs" out there and he's dead-sure that he'd find me somehow. And besides, he added, "we don't really need the what-ifs right now, we're married, i love you and you love me, you're in my arms right now, that's what's most important. Never mind the what-ifs, the "what is" is more than enough. "
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dwightnyen wrote on Dec 2, '05
=) =) =)
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