Sunday Scribblings: Misspent Youth? Hmmm...

Star Trek along with it's many variations; Star Trek, The Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, are among some of my favorite TV shows.

In an episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation, called "Parallels" one of the characters is caught in a space-time continuum which causes him to bounce continually between alternate realities. In various realities he's married to a colleague, working with enemies, promoted; events that haven't happened in his primary reality. The episode really poses the question, "what if?"

This week's prompt for Sunday Scribblings is "Misspent Youth" and it caused me to ruminate over my youth from the vantage point of "what if?"

-At 15 I tried out for cheerleader and didn't make it...but what if I had?
-At 16, I went to prom with a date "found" for me ...but what if I'd stayed home?
-At 17, I didn't apply to the Ivy League school I'd considered, opting to go to a UC...but what if I had applied?
-At 22, I sent my best friend to apply to be a bunny at the Playboy Club and didn't apply as well...but what if I had?

When I think of things I didn't do, paths I didn't take, opportunities I missed or was too frightened of success to pursue, I do think: what if? Are there realities where I've done those things, am doing those things? Am I a high powered executive, a mother, a nun, a race car driver? Do I travel extensively? Am I photographed constantly? Do I retreat to the silence several times a year? Do I live in a foreign country? Do I go into space?

Different paths could have taken me to different places; could have caused me to be a different person from who I am, and I don't think I'd like that.

So when I think of my youth, I don't think it was misspent; it was spent exactly as it was meant to be.

This post was done as part of the Sunday Scribblings