What's a fork in the road you didn't take? Do you ever wonder what that other version of you is doing?
This is a good prompt, and it's one that really made me step back and think about past choices I've made that could've ended differently and altered my timeline.
While not as profound as missing a flight because I was late, subsequently preventing me from boarding the plane which then crashed not long after take off, I still feel one decision stands out above the rest.
Back when I was a senior in high school, I was checking out different colleges around the area (read: Ohio) like most high school students normally did. One college in particular stands out, Ashland University. I was still undecided on what I wanted as a career, so I was looking at schools that offered what I liked at the time; art, design, & coding/programming to name a few.
Anyhow, I ultimately decided against Ashland, but only because I was undeclared and it was a private college which meant it was expensive, and I didn’t want to owe a bunch of money for a major I wasn’t even sure about studying.
A few years later, I ended up meeting my wife through random chance. Since we’re 22 days apart in age, it means we graduated high school around the same time and would’ve been in college as well. After talking about education and colleges, I learned that she was also going to attend Ashland University the same time I would have.
Not that we would’ve crossed paths since the campus is a decent size and our majors were completely different, I’ve always wondered what would’ve happened if we did meet at college? Would we have stuck through and ended up married after college? Separated after graduation if our majors took us to different locations?
Regardless, that’s one of the roads not taken that led me to something better.
Marginalia