Am I Normal?

That's the first question of the day.

The second is: How many other directions could my life have taken?

Both are tied together through memories that I was forced to recall today. Forced is a strong word. But there isn't another I can think of. I was at Coffee, and we played a game of sorts. One where we had topics that we each wrote our responses to. Then we put the answers in a bucket, read them out loud and tried to guess who they belonged to. The topics were simple, and meant to reveal our "hidden" sides. You know, things like "How many one night stands?" "How many total?" "Age at First Time", "Craziest Place", and some innocent ones like "Maiden Name", "Favorite Movie", "First Car".

Yeah. Let's just say I am beginning to think I may not be in the majority. And I think it feels good. In the sense that it reaffirms my belief that despite the nagging voice in my head that says "You're not good enough..." , some more important part of me thinks I am. Because while I've enjoyed my life, and had some crazy fun times, there's nothing I am really ashamed of. Well, ok, maybe one thing. One long two year thing named "TIMMMMMAYYYY". Even my husband laughs about it and he never even met the guy. He was that bad. Again, for all you readers out there, WHY DIDN'T ANYONE EVER TELL ME?!?!?!?! Anyways, point is, it really seems like there are a lot of people who don't/didn't respect themselves. Or is it that they enjoyed their youth with far more reckless abandon than I could ever muster? I think it's a little of both. I think that in order to have wild reckless abandon, you have to feel a need for more love than you're getting, more attention than you receive. You have to feel like you're still searching for somewhere to belong, and your quest is a validation for the actions that you take.

Blah blah blah blah blah. I am just a prude in rebel's clothing. The reason I was so "good" is that I am just all talk and no action. The ideas excited me but the consequences scared me more. CCD worked for me. (Thank You St. John's!!)

Now, let's think about all the things I could have done that I didn't do. And who would I be today if I had done even some of them? Like everyone, I wonder if I had done this scandalous thing or that, would I have a happy life like I do right now? I know I whine a bit but in all honesty, who doesn't? Essentially, my life is as good as it gets. But would some other action have made it even better? Have you ever been somewhere and done or not done something and thought to yourself:

"If this were a Sci-Fi movie, this is the part where it would split into Parallel Universes..."

I know, technically, every moment is like that if you believe in Parallel Universes. But some are just so much more obvious than others, that you even stop to imagine (or get a peek at????) that other life. And is it really better? In this life, would you go back if you could and do it the other way? I don't think I would. But the geek in me wishes I could tell Scotty to "Beam me up" so I could see my other lives. The ones I have stopped to imagine. The few moments in my life that I wish I could take back, and do differently. For me, they are so few and so poignant that I can almost see with perfect clarity the way things might have been different.

Ahhh, but what if there is no such thing as different? What if no matter what you do, you end up where you were meant to go? What if there is only one life you were meant to have in the end? What if nothing really changes the end result, like how you can add up numbers this way or that, but they always come out to the same sum. You can't change what 1+2+3+4 equals. In the same way, maybe you can't change what your life was meant to become. Maybe all you can do is arrange the numbers differently...