The Land of What Ifs

Living in the Land of What Ifs is a pretty dangerous choice of making your home, but sometimes I tend to visit there for a short time, just because I find it very intriguing. I shouldn’t stay there too long, because then I forget about how I need to live in the Land of Now, but it’s definitely a place I’ve vacationed more than once.

What if… what if my life was like a sitcom, where you ship different characters and you’ll have one or two episodes where the writer caters to the fans and makes an adorably lovely episode or two where they play with the chemistry and see how the characters react to each other? You and I have our fair share of sitcom moments, walking around together in one of the most romantic places in the world, dancing in a storm verging on a tornado and getting completely drenched, even practically going on dates together where you insisted on paying and I insisted on you NOT paying, and then running up to the cashier to get the check split before you could get out your credit card. What if instead of meeting her, I decided that I didn’t want us to be friends, and entertained the thought of us being something more than just fantastic dino buddies. You told me that if you weren’t dating her, you would probably end up alone because no one else understands you. I didn’t say, but I definitely thought, “I would date you. I understand.” But I don’t live in the Land of What Ifs, and she makes you happy, and us being together would honestly be such a terrible idea. I wouldn’t want to risk the friendship I treasure so much. But still… what if?

What if… What if I made an incredibly destructive mistake? Who would I be? What if I said yes to you instead of being strong in what I felt at that time, and still feel now? We would still be friends. I would maybe be trapped in something that I couldn’t say no to because I said yes the first time. Would I have the strength that I had to build after you showed me that there are very few people I can trust with the painful things of my life? Maybe it would have ended up okay. I mean, if I had said yes, you would still tell me everything, we would still have those late night conversations that lasted until three in the morning, conversations where you made me feel needed, where I talked you out of your anger and distress and felt like I was important to someone beyond anything romantic. Too bad that wasn’t true. If I said yes then, would the fearful, stubborn, independent parts of me always win out like they do now? Would you have dragged me down with you, or would I have inspired you to higher things? Would I be able to depend on others, or would these walls I’ve built because of you still hold fast?

What if… What if I were brave? What if I came right out and told you how I felt, disregarding the fact that you might not feel the same way? What if I knew that the ping pong games and conversations about space cats and British tea meant that you felt the same butterflies that I did when we saw each other, albeit in probably a more manly way? What if I stopped being afraid of rejection and opened myself up to the possibility of being hurt, because the alternative is too beautiful to resist? What if we showed our faces to each other, instead of always taking those silly, wonderful pictures of dogs and blankets and t-shirts? Would you have said yes? Would I be asking these questions now? What if you had said no? Would that have caused even more walls to spring up? What if I had just taken an action, any action?

What if I had…?

-k