Late Night Thought

Lately, I can't stop thinking about where I am right now. Literally. Where I am standing at any given moment and how I got there. What steps I had to take, what turns I had to make, what paths or shortcuts got me there. I'm thinking about everything I've accomplished and even all the chances I didn't take. I'm thinking about how I got to making (or not making) those decisions. I'm thinking about life as a map.

To me, life is this cheesy, stereotypical map with an infinite amount of paths, shortcuts, side roads, and detours. If you take one path, it will lead you to different paths than if you had taken a different path from the beginning. I've been dwelling for a few years on all the paths that I didn't take, rather I should have been focusing on what happened to get me where I am.

The people along the way.
The things I felt along the way.
The experiences I encountered first hand.
The things I saw. The things I did. The things I never saw until now and the things that for some reason, I never did.
Every single thing in life that I did AND didn't do influenced my life choices and decisions.

It's like a snowball effect; when this happens, it triggers this action, and keeps building up. That buildup? Your LIFE.

It's crazy how these things work out. It's just as crazy how they don't work out. Sometimes they can even be ironic.

I haven't lived as much as I could have by now. I may not have experienced as much as others who are at the same checkpoint as me. We've lived differently, and sometimes I feel like I've lived even more differently than most.

Then, there's him. We have things in common. We obviously get along well. We're similar people; we understand each other. Yet we took two of the most different paths ever....and we wound up at the same place.

It's ironic. The things we've both done, the things we've both had to experience, the two completely different lives we've had to leave brought to where we are now.

You can't help but think about what would have happened if you hadn't done something along the way, good or bad. It definitely would have influenced a thing or two. But maybe everything happened because it needed to. Maybe this domino hit that one just right.