5 things that could have been....

This is something that I actually wrote years ago on my LJ (edited a tiny bit as my writing style has changed some).... it was a meme in which you take 5 turning points in your life and write a brief synopsis of what might be different today if you had made a different choice. In lieu of coming up with a new topic tonight, I give you 5 of my possible lives.

1. I am an Air Force wife, and only mildly hate it. Thankfully, none of his deployments have been too terribly long. He does a lot of "top secret" stuff, but he gets to spend most of his nights at home with me and his two children. Now if only they'd station him somewhere a little closer to St. Louis. Hell, somewhere in the continental US would be nice. Don't get me wrong... it's beautiful here. The base is nice enough and my friends here are great. I do miss my family though... and JJ and little C need to know their grandparents too, yanno?

2. I never thought he was serious when he talked about living in the desert. Here we are though, and amazingly enough I love it. His job lets him work from home so we get to set our own hours. Mostly, he works during the day while I putter around online or lounge around reading. That means we have a lot of nights together under the stars. I'm thinking of going back to school, maybe to do something in journalism. I'm not sure how the logistics would work out, but I'm starting to get restless again. All I know is that I need to do something so I can at least pretend that I'm growing up.

3. The marriage was very short-lived. I knew it was a mistake, asking him to move here. Maybe things would have been different if I had moved up there, but I was really afraid of being miserable. It's hard to imagine being more miserable than I am now though, really. I guess some girls aren't meant to have the fairy tale. Some girls are supposed to just do what they're good at, and I'm good at running the movie theater. I only wish I were also good at getting the popcorn smell out of my clothes!

4. The school system here in St. Joe isn't all it's cracked up to be. The kids are great though, and it makes me really happy that I decided to switch my major instead of throwing in the towel when the Psych department wasn't cutting it. As they say, "Those who can't do, teach." I still see Tim at least once a week. We try for more often. We have more to talk about now that I'm also teaching. I guess it helps that the school-girl crush I had on him has matured along with me. These days our talks are over dinner with a glass of wine instead of across the desk at the Peer Counseling office. It never ceases to amaze me how much of an impact a single class can have on a girl's life. I only hope I can leave such an impression on some of my students. Unlike Tim though, I have no plans to marry one of them someday.

5. So this is what my life is reduced to, huh? One failed relationship after the other? Ah well. At least I'm getting to travel a lot in the deal. I'm sure one of the cities I land in will have a job that I actually want rather than the dead-end jobs that I've been settling for. Maybe then I'll have a reason to stay in town once the romance goes sour. I'm tired of running, but I also seem to have run out of places to run. My family gave up on me years ago, and my friends are few and far between. I think I'll try out New York City next. I know I don't have what it takes to be an actress or anything, but I'm sure they always need people to work in those touristy places. And who knows? Maybe I'll be able to find "me" while I'm helping everyone else hide from themselves.