WHAT IF?

 12.29.2023


What if.... ??

What if I had taken the road less traveled?  What if I had pushed harder to get my Health Occupations teacher to get me hours with the veterinarian across the road from the second high school I had attended?  What if the guidance counselor at my primary high school had asked what I wanted to do and had actually looked at the classes I chose and guided me towards college as a means to launch me into the life I wanted?  Had either of those two things happened, my life would have been so vastly different.  I would have been a veterinarian, or maybe I would have found the story I wanted to write much earlier in life.  

What if I told someone... anyone..  about what happened at my grandparent's house and why I locked the bathroom door and dropped the key down the air vent so no one could get in, would they still have been upset and angry? 

Had I driven up to my sister's camp with her and the baby the day I came home from my trip when she asked if I wanted to go, would I have recognized something was wrong and gotten her to the hospital much earlier?  Would she have had access to a different physician who came to the hospital when he was called the first time to check on her?  Would she have lived?

If I had left him sooner, would my kids lives have been better? 

If I spent more time every day writing my book, would it be done sooner?  At least this one I can answer with a resounding YES!!  The rest, I will never know because I didn't push or explain or go or leave but I can write.  I am at a point in my life where I can see all these things and accept them, but I still have the scars of those things, and some of them will never completely heal.  




 


Comments

  1. BethNovember 29, 2023 at 3:11 PM

    This stopped me in my tracks and I just sat with it for a bit. "What if" sounds so easy until you roll back over the years and stop along the way at some of the biggest what ifs. I want to hug that little girl who locked herself in the bathroom.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CherieDecember 8, 2023 at 8:24 PM

      Thank you, Beth. That little girl is long gone now. Locked away in the far reaches of me but I give her as much love and comfort as I can from where I am now. She doesn't let most people see it and I never talk about her much, and certainly not in public, but felt safe to do that here. She would hug you back so hard that she may never let go.

      Delete
  2. NiceInOhioDecember 6, 2023 at 1:08 AM

    And now my nosy mind is wondering about all your "what ifs". Maybe in another blog?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CherieDecember 8, 2023 at 8:27 PM

      The most impactful moments of my life are here - good and bad. Maybe in a different blog. The interesting thing about blogging is that I never know what will come out on the page.

      Delete
  3. AliciaoftheGBEDecember 8, 2023 at 7:08 AM

    Wow. I wish I knew how to put emojis on these blogs. But my heart was in a in a knot in my chest for you omg. You write with such emotion that it's impossible not to be drawn in by that. It's actually the next day after I read this and I'm still feeling it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. CherieDecember 8, 2023 at 8:32 PM

    Thank you, Alicia, this was an amazing compliment. I guess I don't know any other way to write except what I feel. When I get it right it pours out unguarded and feels like I just let it come through me. It was not what I planned to write about. It is like my very first blog that I ever wrote on MySpace. I was in a lot of emotional pain and after I wrote it, I found peace. That's what this feels like.

    ReplyDelete

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