My memory took me back to my sophomore year in college. I was engaged to be married, unsure about what direction to take in my college studies, and full of wonderful fantasies about what life was going to be like as I moved into adulthood and marriage. My best friend at the time was Steve, who was in my Humanities class. Four days a week I met him in the Student Union Building and wheeled him in his wheelchair to Humanities class. During those walks across campus we shared lots of personal thoughts - our plans for the future, worries about an upcoming exam, romantic dreams, and other very important matters at the time. Steve and I had been friends for only a couple of years, but he had made a huge impact on me, and had caused me to think about things I had never considered before. My life had been a relatively easy one to that point, while his had been filled with challenges, mostly physical ones. Little did Steve know that his friendship and memories of our time together would get me through many tough times in my future life, even though we wouldn’t see each other again after that semester for almost forty years.
My life didn’t turn out to be the one I dreamed up in my mind during those college days, and that is why my mind took a reflective turn yesterday - I began to think about all the sci-fi ideas I’ve read about and seen on television shows. What if I had stayed in school and continued attending classes with Steve another semester or two? Would this have changed both of our lives? Where would we be now? How would our lives be different? What if there is another Steve and Jennie living parallel lives in an alternate universe? What are they like? What could we learn from them? Where would they be now?
Three years ago I saw Steve again, and it was as if time had evaporated. I
tried to tell him how his life had influenced mine, but I’m not sure if I was successful in getting this across to him. Still in a wheelchair, Steve was all smiles and humor, and it was wonderful seeing him again. Again, my mind drifted to the concept of alternate universes. I began thinking a lot of what if’s. If I had made a different decision in my life, if I had taken a different path, would I be here, sitting next to Steve, reminiscing about our high school and college days?The truth is, we don’t have the ability to live more than one life. What we do each day sets our path and direction, and then we are faced with the job of making the best of every decision, both good and bad. So, this brings me back to yesterday. I was sitting in Phil’s big easy chair, listening and talking. I looked around me at my wonderful home, and thought – what if? I don’t have the privilege of visiting an alternate universe, and doubt that one even exists. But the thoughts of such a thing are still a cause for reflection. I don’t know where I would be if something different had happened in my life to change my course, how my life would be different, or where I might be. But all of this isn’t possible. I live each day of my life as it dawns, and make the best of what the day offers. I make mistakes, which may alter my direction, but I continue on with a faith that everything in life has a purpose.
And as I sat in my livingroom with my husband and friend, I knew that I was where I was supposed to be and thought about a book I recently read. A quote keeps coming back to me: “God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen.” ( Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert).
I feel that this is true for me. Wherever my circle in the sand happens to take me, I stand firmly in the middle of it.
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