Alternate Life Timelines. #1 - Going Away To College

Getting older means a lot of things. You see and do a lot. You meet people. You lose people. You experience the exciting, the mundane, the exhilarating, and the ordinary. Your body changes. Your mind changes. Where you live? What you do? It’s all a free-flowing sea of days washing over each other.

As I approach 50, I have a unique perspective on my life and life in general. The older you get, the more chances you have had to travel down different paths. These might not be physical paths. You might not even have traveled far from where you grew up. Time does lend itself to creating different chapters of your life.

In some ways, life becomes like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books. The decisions you make have ripple effects throughout your life. If you do this, then that happens. What about the decisions or events that could have happened but didn’t? Those are going to be the purpose of this series of articles.

I will be looking back at the nearly 50 years of my life and finding the seminal moments that either did, or could have, changed the course of my existence. I will expand on them using my best intuition as to what the probable outcome would have been.

You can easily do this as well and likely already do. Everyone thinks back to moments that could have changed their lives. If you didn’t meet someone. If that car in the other lane hadn’t swerved in time. If you had chosen to take that job. These articles won’t be so much about rehashing regrets. They are more of an interesting look at how many times in life you are faced with the potential of a big change. What do you do when the opportunity arises?



In order for something to have the greatest ripple effect through your life you need to choose moments from long in the past. The first one that pops into my mind is my choice to not go away to college. This has had an enormous amount of impact on my life.

It was 1996. I was a senior in high school and was, in all honesty, getting burned out on school. I had been an honors, sometimes high honors, student. I had taken my SATs when I was thirteen. I had been invited to genius camp by the prestigious Johns Hopkins University. I worked hard on my education throughout my formative years.

I still had time for friends, but I was also driven to be successful in school. This was likely tied to my own self-worth due to not getting much emotional support in my home life aside from my mother, who was doing the best she could to be both parents. Good grades proved I had value.

When senior year came, most of my friends were looking toward the future, specifically college. I had my eyes on some places. They were lofty expectations, like the University of North Carolina or the University of Nevada – Las Vegas. These were tied to athletics, something that I was not excelling in, and therefore my odds of going to schools like those were slim to none.

Closer schools, like the University of Massachusetts, should have been on my radar since I had family who had gone there. You cannot predict the future, and an event happened during the final few months of high school that threw a wrench into my plans; I got a girlfriend.

This changed my outlook. I hadn’t had a real, serious girlfriend before. My judgment became clouded. She was still going to be in high school after I graduated. I couldn’t leave her, right? I enjoyed the feeling of being in a relationship. Having someone who was so deeply into me was intoxicating. So intoxicating that I couldn’t see, or didn’t want to see, the obvious issue. There was a very, very small chance that we would be the high school sweethearts that lasted into old age. The reality was we weren’t going to make it.

When you’re a teenager, dealing with your first real relationship, you don’t have any experience by which to judge your choices. I chose to back off on my application to colleges. In fact, I decided to not apply at all. I chose to take a semester off from school after graduation.

My mother was supportive, but I am sure she could sense that I was starting to drift in a different direction. My life was no longer going to be filled with education. It was about my relationship. I did end up going to college after taking a semester off, and that plan still happened. However, I didn’t go out of state. I barely traveled from my home. I signed up for classes at Cape Cod Community College for the spring semester in 1997.

It is a great school and a boon to the Cape, but compared to how my future had looked a year earlier, it had to be seen as a step down. I took classes in graphic design, journalism, and creative writing, among others. These were all things I wanted to become good at for a creative career. Looking back, though, I was all over the map. I had no definitive path for my education. This is why my major was communications.

To no one’s surprise, my relationship did not last. After 2 ½ years, we broke up. I was devastated, even though I had brought the breakup on myself. That left me heartbroken and wandering through college with no real drive. Not to mention that I had been taking fewer classes per semester than was necessary.

I did that to have time to work and also spend time with my girlfriend. What it meant was that when my two years at community college were finished, I did not have enough credits to get a 2-year degree. I was deflated. It took all of my willpower just to keep going in college to get to that magical two-year mark. After that, I could take a breath and see where I wanted to go. Maybe it wasn’t too late to go to UMass or somewhere else.

None of that happened. I sank into a deep depression and gave up on college temporarily. To escape my sadness and overall frustration at where my life was, I ended up moving to Las Vegas in 2000.

We look at the chain of events from my choice to not go away to college. I lost my drive for education. I settled for a low-risk, low-reward cooking job to pay the bills. I lost a lot of friends because they went away to college. I became resentful of my girlfriend and blamed her for my poor choices in life. Eventually, this led to a breakup, bouts of depression, and ultimately moving across the country to try to find myself before it was too late.

It doesn’t stop with a move to Las Vegas. You can keep the timeline moving forward to anything in the last 25 years that didn’t work out the way I wanted. It truly is the first major regret, major mistake, I made in my adult life.



Now let’s go back. It’s 1996. I am a senior in high school. How would things have changed?

I was already on the fence about going off to college before I met my girlfriend, so we’d have to go back to the beginning of senior year. I have made up my mind that I am going to go to the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. It is close enough that I could visit Cape Cod any chance I could get. It was also far enough away that I’d feel like I was on my own.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t have dated the same girl. I believe that if my plans were in motion to go off to college, I would be less apt to break them and stay. In reality, I didn’t have to cancel anything; I just had to not fill out the applications.

Maybe I date my girlfriend. Maybe I don’t. When August 1996 came though, I’d be packing up and getting ready to head off to college. I likely would have found a dorm roommate from high school classmates who were also going to UMass Dartmouth. I know a few who did.

I would have experienced everything that college life had to offer. Living away from home. Parties. New people. It would have taken a bit of adjusting, but being placed in a large, unfamiliar situation would have done wonders for my confidence.

As far as a major went, I’d be looking for a creative field like I did at Cape Cod Community College. Probably not communications, likely something along the lines of creative writing. I wrote for the college newspaper in reality, so I’d probably do it at UMass as well.

The college experience would have better prepared me for social situations in general as I got later into my 20s and 30s. The older I get, the more difficult it becomes to step out of my comfort zone. Succeeding or failing at doing things while in college would have shown me that I would be all right in an unfamiliar environment. Going away to college would have forced me out of my normal routine. The longer I stayed on Cape Cod, the more ingrained the routine became. It’s like stepping into wet cement. You can get out of it, but you have to do so quickly, otherwise you are stuck once it dries.

After four years of college, the sky would have been the limit. I would have graduated in 2000. In reality, by the summer of 2000, I had gone through that terrible breakup, dealt with severe depression, given up on college (temporarily), and decided to move to Las Vegas. In the alternate timeline, none of that would happen.

I might have had breakups and dealt with depression, but I would have been able to look at what I was doing in college and hope that any suffering would pay off. I do believe I would have pulled through any adversity. In the alternate timeline, I might have been getting burned out on school, but I never took my foot off the gas. That is the biggest regret.

When you have momentum in anything, it’s easier to just keep going than it is to stop and try to start again later. In this timeline, I keep going. Even if I don’t become the absolute best I could be, I would not have the doubts and self-loathing that grew inside of me in my early 20s. It’s hard to shake the feeling that you’re a failure.



The view from 20,000 feet shows a massive change in my life and my identity as a person. No high school girlfriend means no messy breakup, which means I don’t feel a desperate need to find love anywhere. This had serious effects on my confidence. Going away to college means I don’t settle for the low-risk job that I ended up spending way too many years at. Comfort does not always equal happiness.

Graduating from college with whatever degree means I have a wide open playing field in which to ply my trade. Maybe I do end up in Las Vegas, but with a college degree. This would mean not grabbing the first low-paying job I could find just so I wouldn’t be broke while I went to college out there. Or maybe I end up somewhere totally different, with totally new people and experiences that take me further and further from Cape Cod.

Maybe I make connections elsewhere. Maybe I meet my soulmate in a town I don’t even know exists. Maybe I get married, have kids, own a house, all things I do not have in my reality. I am sure I would find time to visit home, but it would not be nearly the same as reality.

This brings me to the things I would have missed out on if my life had gone down this other path. First and foremost, I would have drifted away from my family. Not out of spite, but due to time, distance, and my own schedule. I would not have been there for the births of my two older nieces. I would not have had the close bond with them when they were growing up. That right there eliminates most of the regret I feel about not going off to college.

I would not have seen my Grampa as the role model and hero that he became. I grew to appreciate him more as I got into my later 20s and 30s. If I am not close by, I probably find my role models in celebrities or strangers. Who knows what that means for me as a person?

Then other things may or may not have still happened. Do I get a book published, or as it stands now, ten? Do I get deep into fitness and get into the best shape of my life in my mid 30s? Or do I end up overweight with various health issues that I don’t have to worry about in reality? It’s things like that which you take for granted.



So, to sum up this first alternate timeline, where do I think I’d be at this stage of my life if I had chosen to go away to college right after high school? Obviously, there’s a difference between what I’d want for a life and what I truly believe. For me, I think what I’d want and believe wouldn’t be that far apart.

At Age 48 in this alternate timeline, I could see myself living somewhere like Southern California. Not Los Angeles or San Diego, I don’t like cities. It would be a mid-sized town, probably slightly inland and somewhere halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

I don’t think I’d be an author, but I’d be working in some creative field. Despite being a writer, podcaster, etc. I have learned many ancillary skills like editing, research, and story development. I could see myself finding steady, good-paying work, maybe not in my dream job, but a suburb of my dream job.

I believe that I have good genes. I would still likely be in halfway decent shape physically and probably better shape emotionally. The experiences, both good and bad, of college would have better prepared me for being an adult.

I would be married. Is it my first? Who knows. I know not all marriages make it. I also would know if I found love once I could find it again, so I wouldn’t close myself off like I tend to do in reality. Kids? I believe I’d have two. I’d hope for a boy and a girl, Michael and Jocelyn, but two of the same would be just as good.

In reality, I have been chasing my dreams as an author and creator for so long. The idea of letting them go to pursue a ‘normal’ life hasn’t sounded appealing. Having gone to college for a specific major would give me the purpose I have been chasing. I’d find a job and meet new people. Maybe I meet ‘the one,’ and we get married and have kids.

Or maybe I hit a bump in life that throws me off course, and I end up living in a shack in the woods with a beard I have to stuff into my pants, so I don’t trip over it. This is all a guessing game.

In the end, it is a fun and somewhat enlightening exercise to look at where I think I would be in life if I had gone away to college in 1996. What I always come back to is that there has to be a reason why I am where I am and who I am at this point in my life. I might briefly wonder what might have been, but I can’t live there.

“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.” – Kurt Cobain


See you in the next alternate timeline.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #45: Early Sunsets, Metal Pile Mayhem, Food Coma, etc.

 

1. It always makes me feel like I’m up to no good when sitting in my car in a beach parking lot after dark. Maybe because plenty of times I used to be up to no good. At this time of year though with the sunset at about 4:20(nice), it is possible to sit in a dark secluded beach parking lot at 5pm. That’s still a good chunk of daylight when in the summer. Yet there I am sitting in the parking lot wondering if I should move on before the cops come and yell. Part of me still feels like I’m 18.

2. There was a momentarily fun flashback this week in an unexpected way. I needed to finally throw away an old mini-fridge that had been sitting in a storage area where I live for years. Ripping the door off of it to be allowed to throw it away at the local dump was fun. When I got there to toss it I had flashbacks as I had to put the fridge body in one area. The door and any insides needed to be thrown into the neighboring metal pile. Way back in the 90s several friends and I used to frequent the metal pile. We lived nearby plus it was in a different area of the dump. We used to sneak through the woods and then perform acts of mayhem like whipping rocks into the televisions. You know, teenage boy crap. No, I didn’t try to smash any TVs this time but the memories did flood back.

Memories of mayhem.

3. It’s a bit disheartening when I share thoughts and problems in my life. Rather than friends and family being understanding and supportive it ends up being a pissing match. It seems to always be one of those ‘Oh you think that’s bad, well here’s what’s going on in my life.’ I typically end up as everyone’s sounding board but when it’s time for me to vent there’s no one to listen. I hate being so closed off as I feel now but it’s like why reach out when it seems like nobody is willing to give, only take. I am learning not to expect what you give in return.

4. A random question I needed to find an answer to was: Where do seagulls sleep? The reason why? I was at the beach shooting the sunset and the parking lot was packed with dozens of gulls hanging out. Even right after the sun went down they were like little white dots all over the pavement. Then seemingly out of nowhere, they all were gone. I figured after dark they all go to a more secluded spot and sleep while a few stand guard. That’s kind of true as I found in my research. I just found it interesting that the beach went from seagull party to empty in a snap. As my Uncle Steve would say, they all did their ‘Irish goodbyes.’ That just means leaving quietly before anyone notices.

5. It’s amazing and a bit overwhelming to stop and think about how different your life would be had you made different choices. For me, I can think off the top of my head of at least a dozen pivotal moments in my life where if I’d gone left instead of right my life would look so different. These choices could be certain people, jobs, or things that were said. Also, not all of these choices necessarily would have made my life better. Some of them I think would have led to other multiple choice questions. It’s kind of like standing on a road and the road splinters off, and again, and again, until it’s like a huge spiderweb.

So many different roads.

6. A change of scenery can really lead to a change of mind. I always find that going to the college library to write and work on content is a far more rewarding experience than doing it at home. I don’t know if it’s because I associate the library with my time there as a student so I know when I’m in the library it’s work time? Maybe I feel I need to step my game up when surrounded by people there trying to better themselves? Whatever it is I do enjoy it and need to make it more of a part of my habit like it was years ago.

7. For 15 years since my Nana died I had owned several of her belongings because I wanted things to remember her. I have her old crossword puzzle pen, her old gigantic television, and the stand it came on that my Uncle Eric had to saw parts of the sides off of so the TV would fit. I also had her microwave. Finally this week I decided to upgrade and get a new microwave. There were loads of Black Friday deals so I got a good price. I went to Best Buy in the Cape Cod Mall. The funny thing was that the microwave was too small to need help bringing it out to my car but too big for it to be a simple task. I ended up heaving it up onto my shoulder and walking out like that, keeping one hand free to show the employee at the front my receipt so they didn’t think I was just stealing microwaves.

8. I don’t know what is more crowded. Is it the local stores on Black Friday? Or is it the local gym on Black Friday filled with people feeling guilty about how much food they ate on Thanksgiving? I’d think you’d be safer being at the crowded gym where you can only get a dumbbell dropped on your foot. In a crowded store, you might get stabbed by some crazy parent who wants the last doll on a shelf. I’ll stick to online shopping thank you.

9. Fun fact, it takes roughly 20-30 minutes of eating before your brain recognizes it’s full. Another fun fact, on Thanksgiving I did not heed this warning from my mother. When I say it was the most painful type of being full I’d ever experienced I am not lying. It felt like I had a cinder block lodged in my ribs and stomach. It was almost comical how terrible I felt, more so after I started feeling better a few hours later. I had to stand outside on my mom’s deck for a while trying to stay upright until my body could start digesting. Believe me, all of the food my mom made was amazing. That’s the main reason I was stuffed like a beached whale.

How I felt on Thanksgiving.

10. The places might change, and the guest list might change, but the feelings of thankfulness and gratefulness don’t change for me. The older I get I appreciate even more having those times to get together with family and friends. Thanksgiving is of course a day of food as you could tell from the entry above. However, I’d take just hanging with family and friends with no food over eating until I can’t move by myself. Of course, a mix of both is always good as well.