What is one decision you made in the moment—without fully realizing it—that quietly changed the entire direction of your life?

I have quite a few:
– What if I had immediately told my mom about an abuser when I was 12 instead of keeping it a secret?
– What if I’d done things differently and nurtured the relationship with my high school sweetheart?
– What if I’d moved to Mexico at the request of someone I was dating online when I was 19-20?
– What if I’d waited to have kids and gotten an education and career first?
– What if I’d focused on myself rather than focusing so much on making other people happy?
– What if I’d realized when I was younger that relationships with women were okay, instead of always assuming they had to be with men?

For the sake of this blog post, I’m going to choose What if I’d moved to Mexico at the request of someone I was dating online when I was 19-20?

Looking back, was that decision made from hope, fear, survival, love, or something else entirely?

I wanted to go for many reasons, but mostly for love. He was sweet, ambitious, intelligent, and wholesome. Overall we seemed like a wonderful match. However, I listened to my mom’s fears and my own fears, and didn’t go. Fears about cultural differences and my complete lack of understanding of different ways of life. I was not at all confident that I could make it on my own. And though I now feel I should have, I didn’t trust that I would be taken care of by the man I would have gone there to spend my life with. I had been very shielded from the world and was quite immature for my age, in many ways.

If you had made the opposite choice, who do you think you would be today?

I believe if I had been bold and confident enough to take that leap, today I would be a very happily married woman with a big family and a fantastic partner. I cannot even fathom the ways my life would be different or what my life would fully look like because it would have been so wildly different than what my life is like today. I can only speculate.

On days when I’m feeling extra down, I tend to go down the rabbit holes in my head of all of my ‘what ifs.’ This is one of my biggest ones. Lately I’ve been trying hard to leave the past in the past. My exes, the experiences I chose not to explore and missed out on, along with the bad decisions I’ve made. I know it’s not good to dwell on things I can never change. And I’m working on accepting those decisions and living for now, learning, and taking those lessons to do better for myself in the future.