alternate universes

There's something appealing about the idea of alternate universes. 

That somewhere out there, our lives look very different. That somewhere out there, we made different choices and got very different results. 

Maybe alternate-universe Jaime moved abroad and is living in Ireland or maybe she's a marine biologist or a psychologist. Maybe she's a cellist in an orchestra or a famous actress starring in her own written works.

Maybe she is no longer alive in some of those universes too.

There are an infinite number of possibilities because it's not just a matter of the choices I've made in my life, but the choices of everyone else in the whole wide world too — the ones I know and the ones I don't.

The nice thing about reflecting on those alternate universes is that some of those things you wish and dream of are not unattainable in your own universe!

I may never be an orchestral cellist, but that doesn't mean I can't learn to play now. In fact, when I graduated from university, I would tell people that the first big purchase I wanted to make after getting a full-time job was a cello. And now that I have my first real full-time job (with benefits!), that future gets closer and closer.

However, there are downsides to thinking about these alternate spaces because some things — many things, really — are not in our control.

Maybe in another universe, the boy I fell madly in love with learned to love me back. Thinking those things hurt. It stirs up feelings of jealousy of a version of me and life that I will never know exists. And what good is being jealous of someone who may not exist?

Use those thoughts about alternate-you to figure out what you want to do in your own universe. And those things you can't change? Those things that are decided by someone else's decisions and actions and not our own? Let those fly.

I'll admit, it does hurt to watch them float away. It hurts to watch them drift further and further into the sky until they disappear from sight entirely.

But it's okay. It will all be okay. You will get to where you want to be.