I wonder, sometimes, what I would be like if I still lived in the small town I was born in.
And, of course, this is almost impossible to imagine. I left when I went to college and I have been back a handful of times in the ensuing 12 (omg, twelve) years. This city, my friends here, my job…it is my life. Everything that has happened since I left RI-my friends, my schooling, my career trajectory-has made me me. Of course.
But still. I think about it.
I think I would probably be married and maybe have a kid or two. I’d maybe have a house and reluctantly have a dog. A hypoallergenic dog, but maybe a dog.
I would have job, a good one I assume.
I would like to think I would have hobbies and things that made me happy outside my marriage. Maybe I would teach cooking classes? Or still write? Still write, probably.
And parties, I would host epic parties with stocked bars and abundant food.
Or maybe, I would be miserable. Not that that life is misery making, just probably not for me.
I still like to wonder what if.
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Oh boy do we have to get together and have a massive catch-up/bitch-fest/etc session. I wonder this all the time … I see all the people I’m “friends” with on Facebook, the ones who were the cheerleaders and popular, and they all got married and immediately popped out a kid and they’re plastic and fat and have no career and I think, is it them? Or is it because they never left? I don’t know, and I don’t think I want to know, because there but for the grace of …
Well, you know how it is.
But I do think at the very least you would be throwing the absolute BEST parties in town.
I wonder about those things more often than you could imagine
Love/hate the “what if…” game. Would I be happier? Sadder? More/less successful? Discover a deeply-buried maternal instinct? Own a home?
This is where my armchair cosmology and love of theoretical physics come in. In the multiverse, I DO still live in my hometown and own a home full of kids and am happy and a success! And also a failure who rents and has no kids yet still lives in my hometown!
I don’t know… I’ve always found “What If…” a dangerous game. It tends to spiral into depressing oblivion. :-\
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i wonder the exact same thing every time i visit my Mum - and then shudder at the thought. As though i wonder i love my life as it is right now
Since I moved around a lot growing up, I didn’t have a “hometown” until I was about 12. Since graduating high school, I have been back 4 times. The most recent one being a decade ago.
And the last time I was there, I was ready to cut my eyes out with a rusty razor within 30 minutes.
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I didn’t really have a hometown. We moved around so much when I was growing up that I would be loathe to say which one is my hometown - I guess I have a few? I still wonder what it would be like if I lived somewhere else. I’ve been here for 7 years. It’s not that long in the grand scheme of things, but it’s longer than anywhere I’ve lived. I wonder what my life would be like if I lived somewhere a little simpler; maybe somewhere where life was less expensive and people had less money and got married younger.
And while I’m pretty sure I’d find it dreadfully boring and filled with the quiet pain one feels while attempting to provide a mirage of constant perfection - I grew up in the White Picket Fence and I’ve always felt it was more American Beauty than Disney Channel - I do sometimes wonder what in my life would be different. Would I be lonelier? Would I have ever started dating? Then again, maybe I’d be engaged, or have some fur babies, and own my own home, and never have developed a love of Tadashi Shoji couture, and I’d be content with spending less money. It can be really hard to say.
I wonder the same thing just, well, opposite. I live in a tiny CT town and have my whole life. I stayed by choice because of the life I’ve built here, but I always wonder what if I had built that life somewhere else?
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I’ve played the “what if” game about moving to a bigger city, say Chicago or New York. Or perhaps a foreign city…I sent a summer as a transfer student in France so I always assumed I would live in Europe for a time. Once my ex-husband was very close to getting a position in Geneva, Switzerland and then it fell through in the final moments. I’ve often wondered if we’d have stayed married longer (at all?) if we’d moved there. As though people are happier in Switzerland. (Maybe they are.) Instead I’ve lived in the same city my whole life.
The best thing I ever read about this sort of thought is that what if every possible choice you could have made is being followed through in some alternate universe? What if every possible version of you is out there living out every possible outcome and you are the you you’re supposed to be. All those other Yous are busy living their paths.
I like that because I feel it helps me do away with regret. Real or imagined.
your dinner parties would be the highlight of everyone’s lives i imagine. nothing but the best deliciousness
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I moved back to my parents’ house for a year and a half after graduation, so I know from experience that if I was still in my hometown, I would be fucking miserable. As much as I love my parents, I could never, ever go back.
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I wonder this too.