What if...

My mom and I were talking a little bit about Aimee this morning. Yesterday would’ve been her 37th birthday, and of course the question of “could we have done anything to make her life better?” is always in the back of our minds. Would she have been a different person if we’d met her sooner? Wouldn’t it be great if we could go back in time and do everything differently?

And that question doesn’t just apply to Aimee. I wonder how many times in my life I’ve asked myself, “what if THIS happens? What if THAT happens?” and how many times I’ve mused over, “if only THIS or THAT actually HAD happened.” And I’m sure I’m not the only one – we’ve all questioned choices we’ve made, and mourned the loss of opportunities, and agonized over the past. But why? Is it just human nature to torture ourselves over things that can never be? Are we hardwired to always wish for the things that can never be changed?

Rick was telling me a few days ago that he has to give a presentation for his class this semester. For some reason, I was reminded of a presentation I gave in my high school chemistry class on mercury. My dad had a little vial of mercury he kept somewhere in his stash of various science-geeky odds and ends, and I brought it with me as a visual aid. My classmates were passing it around as I began my presentation. Suddenly, one of the girls squealed and pointed at her neighbor’s desk. One of the idiot children in my class had opened the vial of mercury and poured it out onto his desk. Panic ensued (as MOST of us already understood that mercury is NOT supposed to be sitting right there on someone’s desk, wiggling like a little puddle of Jello…) and the space around the desk cleared out until my chemistry teacher was able to contain the offending element.

I think the reason I remembered this particular incident was because my chemistry teacher was one of those “you’d better start talking or else” instructors I had at various points throughout high school. Before I got up to the front of the class to begin my presentation, she made a point of loudly and dramatically announcing to the class that she would need to turn off the overhead fan, so everyone could hear me. Couple that humiliation with the runaway mercury (which brought my presentation to a temporary stand-still, after which point I was forced to start the entire thing over again) and it was one of the most nerve-wracking presentations I had to get through in high school. After I told the story, Rick asked me if I’d ever said anything to the teacher – and of course I hadn’t. He thought perhaps it would’ve been beneficial for me to ask her, why, exactly, she felt it necessary to humiliate me in front of the class as opposed to simply turning off the fan without broadcasting it to the world. And to be honest, I don’t think turning off the fan really made much of a difference – apparently she was just very bored and found the whole thing rather amusing.

And I explained to Rick that I could NEVER find the words to tell people how much they were upsetting me, until AFTER the fact. Afterwards, I could always think of a million things that I should’ve said. A million things that would’ve eloquently conveyed my displeasure and unhappiness and sense of injustice. A million things that would’ve found their way into the reasonable synapses of my teachers’ brains, until they all said, “why, of course! Lisa, you’re absolutely right – we HAVE been acting like bratty little eight-year-olds who don’t deserve to be infusing the younger generation with our decidedly-lacking knowledge and non-existent common sense! How right you are! In fact, we’re all going to quit right now, so this school can hire compassionate, caring, intelligent instructors!” But, like I said, I could never think of anything to say until it was too late…

Now, years later, I try not to let some of the hurtful things I heard in high school get to me. Because really, what can I do? Nothing. What’s done is done, and what’s in the past is in the past. I can’t go back to that chemistry classroom and re-present my presentation. I can’t get my dad’s mercury back (I’m pretty sure my teacher confiscated it…). I can’t run over to the switches on the wall and turn the fan back on. And it’s the same with every aspect of life – we can’t go back and make different choices, we can’t change the things that have already happened. And yet, I know I, at least, am very guilty of “living in the past” at times. It’s almost like I try, as hard as I can, to force my life into the shape of those “if onlys.” It’s like my life is a triangle, but IF ONLY I’d done this or that, it would be a square. So I try to smash the triangle and make it fit into a square, like those children’s toys with the different-shaped blocks. But it never works – it’s a triangle, and you can’t turn it into anything else.

What you CAN do is take whatever you have and add on to it – you can start from the PRESENT and keep going, but you can’t start from the past. So maybe I can never have a square life (but really, who wants a “square” life anyway??). But perhaps someday I can have a pyramid? And everyone knows pyramids are filled with gold and jewels and treasure…