At one time or another, most of us look back at our lives and ask ourselves whether we would have made the same choices at particular points in our lives. And whether we have “brought to the table” contributions that have enriched the lives of our friends and community.
At the same time, we have to acknowledge what is done is done. Our personal history is not amenable to a second chance but exists in time as a fixed given. Second chances are in the present - about any choices we face that might be informed by what we learned in the past.
Yet, feelings linger around the question of “if only I had known.” For me, the greatest choices I made that formed me into who I am now are marriage, being a parent, the work I have done, and opportunities to travel extensively.
I might speculate about who I might be today if I had not married the same man – or married anyone at all. What if I had not had children – or had more than two children? What if I have traveled less - or gone to more risky places for the challenge? Would I have chosen the same work?
If only I had known how marriage to my childhood sweetheart would form who I am today! This man, whom I don’t even recognize in photos from the early years of our marriage, has challenged and supported me, loved me, and driven me to tears. I could always out-think and out-smart other men I met in college. But not this man! He is someone I can not push around, which is a good thing. We are evenly matched as two strong people.
Who might I be today if I had never married? In my growing up years, we called them spinsters – behind their backs, of course. Marriage was a requirement to attain identity as an adult. High school girls used to doodle in class, practicing signing their names as Mrs. Joe Smith - or whoever their current boyfriend was. No women’s first names in the world in which I grew up.
The only women who were pitied more than spinsters were married women who were unable to have children. We whispered to each other behind their backs, as though one is not fully a woman until after childbirth. A man was essential until the elder years when being a widow gave one a particular status in the community. Secretly the source of a bit of envy from younger women, if their marriages produced more pain than pleasure.
If I had not married, would I have managed to not become a dried-out, rigid spinster? What would it have been like to be so in charge of my own life? When the feminist movement opened the doors for woman when I was thirty, could I have made this shift in identity from being an unmarried woman to being a single person?
If only I had known what having children would mean! I look at the lives of childless women who are my peers. They have had opportunities in their lives that were impossible in mine. As several single women have put it, it meant putting something down and going off to work - and the object remained in exactly the same place until their return.
Amazing! I’d leave for work with a dinner plan in mind and return home to discover my teen-age children had “hoovered” the refrigerator of essential items for dinner. And it is not just a child’s years from birth until twenty-one and then one is free of child-rearing responsibilities. Parenting is a permanent condition and you worry about them even after they are successfully on their own.
At the same time, I am glad I was a member of a generation in which one did not choose to have children. One just did – it was expected, not a choice. With such innocence I awaited the birth of my first child, this little helpless babe who would need me to learn how to become an adult. Instead, I long ago let go of the belief that it was my job to form and shape my children – it is the reverse that happens. These two daughters of mine forever altered me and who I believed I was.
Do I regret not traveling to more places on “my someday list?” Sometimes, yes. If only I’d have gone further and cruised the waters of Antarctica as I rounded the tip of South America or gone on to Svalbard when I was at the very top of Norway. If only I had made it to Vietnam Bangkok
Yet, every trip has meant not going somewhere else. Just as all the traveling I have done has meant not having financial resources for other things. It’s those choices I have faced in my life. A person can never have it all.
Work choices in my life have been more complicated - even if my choices often seemed random or dependent on “being in the right place” (or the wrong place) at the right time. When I look back – or to the future – it has been a combination of synchronicity and pure chance.
None of my work choices ever have been answers to the question of “what do I want to do when I grow up.” Most of what I have done are things I never would have imagined I would or could do. Not even any intentional goals co-mingled with unpredictable factors. The only certainty is that whatever work I have done in my lifetime has had a profound influence on who I am becoming. And with each choice I have made, at the time I made that choice, I have felt called to the work that appeared before me.
Perhaps it is best none of us knows the future consequences of our choices. Life’s gift is the unexpected that shapes us through unplanned experiences and encounters. Being willing to flow into what shows up has taught me taught humility - and awe. I have been “forced” into places I never would have considered. And I have contributed to the world around me in ways beyond my limited imagination.
If only I had known who I would become, would I have enjoyed the journey more and worried less? If only I had known it was going to rain, I’d have taken an umbrella . . . or I could have chosen to stay home.
