What if?

For the past several nights I have had to force myself to study. Studying can wait.

Yesterday I rode with a group of friends to Atlanta to watch the Braves. I ended up watching a kid do the worm to a drum line, strategies to catch a baseball, and a whole bunch of rain clouds and puddles and rain. It was so great though; the ride, and the dancing kid, and the overly expensive sandwich and fries, the random organ tunes, and even sitting in a wet seat in the rain for 2 hours just to have the game canceled. I liked it. I liked just laughing with my friends, and making random jokes, and drinking bottled water, and running in the rain, and being stuck in traffic for hours, and almost running out of gas, and laughing, and laughing, and laughing. That’s a good day if you ask me.

The only bad thing about Atlanta was the ridiculous people: the rude ones who honked their horns, and refused to let us move over, and did other ridiculous things. I don’t like ridiculous people.

Then, today, I went with a friend to Montgomery for an eye exam. We ended up walking around in circles downtown, but I liked that too. I like getting lost when someone else is with me. I should make it a point to lose myself more often, I seem happy enough when it happens.

Later, we were working on a project and she said out of the blue, “Have you ever thought this is all just a dream and you’re not even living in it?”

I’m not sure if I have. Sometimes I wish in the morning that what I just dreamed was true, but sometimes, I’m exceedingly happy to wake up to find that it’s not.

For example: when I dream that my hair falls out or is chopped off, I could kiss my long hair in the morning when it’s still there.

In one of the best dreams I ever had I was sitting on a little desk, and a red balloon was tied to the leg, and I was just sitting on this desk, my legs hanging over the edge, and I just floated around. I bobbed up and down in the air, and through the trees, and through the neighborhoods. Just me and my red balloon. That was a good dream.

I once dreamed that I died and went to heaven, and Jesus was in a yellow mustang; and we sat on purple bean bags that floated in black, and I saw my Bigdaddy there. And then I went to hell and it was all green, and gray, and there was no ground, and there was no sky, and people just walked without looking side to side, and they didn’t talk, and they didn’t wave..they just walked. And everything looked like old, rotten peers, and houses.

I also once dreamed that a nameless man, with a face I don’t know loved me, asked me to marry him, and I did.

I know my friend was talking about dreams, really, but those are some of my favorites. But I guess I do know what she was talking about, about life feeling like a dream, like it’s not real. If life were like a dream, I would do the whole, “I know I’m just dreaming and I’ll make whatever I want to happen, happen.” That’s my favorite.

I wonder more often what my life would look like had I done something else. What if I had never become friends with that person, what would have happened, changed? I wonder, sometimes, what I would have done if I had only an English degree. What would my life look like if I had made one less mistake, just one, or if I had made just one more? What if he had liked me, or I had liked him? What if that time I caught myself I had fallen? What if I hadn’t walked away? What if, what if, what if.

I think at the end of the day, I just have to stop wondering over the other scenarios and accept that what has happened has happened for a reason. That by some force of God’s hand I’ve been pushed into the right direction, even when I’m attempting to go the other way. I don’t know what could have been or would have been, and I don’t know, really, if there is anything I could have done to make things any better or worse than they are now.

I may not like the way thing are tomorrow or today, but they are. And I don’t really think there is much I can do to change them. I highly doubt that a few words from me will change anyone’s mind, and I doubt there’s a mistake that can’t be forgiven, and I think there is always time to change, there is always time to forgive, there is always time to turn around, there is always time to say what you’ve wanted to say, and there’s always time for a second chance. I believe very much in second chances; I wonder if they believe in me.

But, to leave some wise words that very much influence the things I do now, here’s a poem that has lead me to do a many scary, spontaneous, and courageous things, even when in my heart, I was a coward. It’s really long, so I’ll bold my favorite part in an attempt to “get to the point.”

MAUD MULLER
by: John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)

MAUD MULLER, on a summer's day,
Raked the meadows sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.
Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.
But, when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,
The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast--
A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.
The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.
He drew his bridle in the shade
Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,
And ask a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow across the road.
She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup,
And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.
"Thanks!" said the Judge, "a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed."
He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of the singing birds and the humming bees;
Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.
And Maud forgot her briar-torn gown,
And her graceful ankles bare and brown;
And listened, while a pleasant surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.
At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away,
Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah, me!
That I the Judge's bride might be!
"He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.
"My father should wear a broadcloth coat;
My brother should sail a painted boat.
"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,
And the baby should have a new toy each day.
"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor,
And all should bless me who left our door."
The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still.
"A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.
"And her modest answer and graceful air
Show her wise and good as she is fair.
"Would she were mine, and I to-day,
Like her, a harvester of hay:
"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,
"But low of cattle, and song of birds,
And health, and quiet, and loving words."
But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold,
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.
So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.
But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;
And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.
He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.
Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go:
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.
Oft when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;
And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.
And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain,
"Ah, that I were free again!
"Free as when I rode that day,
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."
She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.
But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.
And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein,
And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.
Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;
The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned;
And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,
A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been."
Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;
And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!


I guess, in summary, the only thing that I can say is, life is sometimes like the rainy day on the day of your Braves game. You can either let the fear of the rain and the wind keep you from going, or you can run in the rain, kick at the wind, and enjoy the time spent living, even if it isn’t exactly how to imagined it or hoped it to be, because sometimes the alternative is what you really needed. And there’s no point in asking “what if” unless you’re really brave enough to find out…