Pay no attention to the NY Republican
A few weeks ago I wrote about a
turning point in my grandfather's life. If
not for one fateful decision on his part, which was no doubt only part of a
long
series of fateful decisions and seemingly random accidents, I might never have
been
born.
One such accident was my own father, who is roughly a full decade younger than
his nearest sibling and approximately twenty years younger than his oldest
sibling. My oldest cousin is only six months younger than my dad. None of that
is really
relevant to my point, though. I tend to ramble after a nearly sleepless night
paying rapt attention to a hotly contested presidential election.
Anyway, I sometimes wonder "what if" about my life. The smallest change in my past could reverberate into my present with drastic consequences. If my parents had not divorced during my childhood, I probably never would have moved to Austin and met my wife at the age of 22. If I hadn't nearly failed both 5th and 6th grades in school, my academic path would have been much different and I probably never would have moved to Austin and met my wife at the age of 22. If I had joined my high school's wrestling, soccer, and/or debate teams, I might have received a scholarship to a different college and I probably never would have moved to Austin and met my wife at the age of 22.
Is it in any way useful to think about this? Probably not. "What if" isn't far removed from "never was or will be." Have I deprived myself of countless other lives that I would have lived had I chosen different roads? I don't think so. Those other lives don't exist. Those roads don't even exist any more. They dissolved into nothingness the moment I turned away from them. When I look back, I have a few regrets, things I wish I had done differently. But if I had, I might not be The Happy Husband now. I wouldn't trade that for anything.
So now I am The Happy Husband, and this is me on 37 hours of wakefulness, three hours of sleep, 45 ounces of Dr Pepper, and one sip of coffee. One little photograph from my Uncle Bob sends me on this chaotic and theoretical rambling. It is a photo of my one-year-old father wandering around in his short pants after one of the few snowfalls East Texas has seen in his 57 years of life. He's a pretty big guy now. It's hard to believe he was ever that small.
I must now sleep.
