Alternate Reality.

I don't regret many things that I have done; however, I regret many things that I haven't.  Words I didn't say, doors I didn't walk through.

Every decision I made not to act was a link in a very straight and narrow chain leading to the here and now, and each action I did not choose branched off into what is now its own parallel universe, its own hypothetical world that would lead to entirely different circumstances than the ones in which I find myself now.  I know that I'm where I'm supposed to be, but I can't help but wonder about all these other points on the map that I'll never travel to.

I journey to these worlds in my daydreams sometimes, and once in a while I find points where these chains run parallel to my own, and I fantasize ways that I could somehow skip between these realities without losing very much, almost like doubling back with a handful of what I have and taking a different route at the intersection of confusion.

Failure is the standard when trying to jump between the worlds.  People haunt these spaces the most, opportunities for social advancement alone stab me in the heart.  I care not about jobs I had lost, or the college degree I never finished, or the hobby I didn't pursue.  It is the relationships gone and forgotten, the ones that never were which make me long to leap that phantasmic space between these chains.

If only is a delicate whisper on this cosmic wind, a light breeze against my soul that turns me around sometimes.  But because I walked that particular chain and made no divergence in what must only be my destiny, I have my eyes focused solely on one bright, shining star:  My children.  They alone are my reason, and they alone are the only things I'd take with me if ever I doubled back, that handful of whatever goodness I found along my way.

I eagerly drink from the springs of new opportunity only to find myself eternally thirsty.  If only...