What If?

On cold, dreary days like this one, it's incredibly difficult not to let my mind wander to what might have been.

Now, my "might have been" is not melancholy. I'm not wishing that these things had come to pass, I'm merely curious at how my life would have turned out had I made a few different decisions. If my life were a "choose your own adventure" book, I would just want to read the other paths, see what the other options would have looked like.

Let's start with this one:

What if I'd stayed in Boston the first time?

I stayed. I freaked out, I cried, but I stayed. I kept working at the radio station. I decided that although I loved that job, I wanted to stick with my major and be a magazine writer.

What would that have looked like? So, I stayed, and I finished my degree. I pushed through another Boston winter and walked in a graduation gown and masters' hood in the Spring.

Would Marie Claire have hired me, as I originally planned? Or would I be stuck working at Barnes and Noble, still trying to make it as a freelance writer.

Or, with a perfect twist of destiny, would I have applied for work at Boston Public Library and still found myself in the same profession?

Now that I see that typed on the page, I'm convinced that's how it would have gone. Big time magazine editor? Not my speed.

So, Boston wasn't a waste. And I shouldn't have stayed. I wound up exactly where I belong, and that was unavoidable.