Choice

Steve posted this pretty cool song on his blog. It talked about things in your life not being all they were supposed to be, how the songwriter would go back and change everything if he could.

It made me think about critical choices I’ve made in my life, and if I would change them if I had the chance. Also about the events that conspired to even bring me into existence.

Last part first, my dad was originally engaged to not my mom. Something happened and he didn’t marry her and he married my mom. This is all hearsay, and I should really ask my dad to explain it fully, but it blows my mind that perhaps one critical decision in my dad’s life could have not brought me into existence. Had he married this other woman, I wouldn’t exist, Pure Gonzo Engineering wouldn’t exist, and Carter wouldn’t exist. Heavy shit for a Monday, I know.

There are three critical decisions I’ve made in my life that really steered me to where I am now. There are millions of smaller ones that are probably of equal or greater importance, but these stick out in my mind.

#1 The choice not to have sex with my high school girlfriend. I was a good little Catholic and thought I would burn in the fires of hell if I had premarital sex. Like most other good little Catholics, this didn’t include the heavy petting, stroking, etc., etc. I wouldn’t fuck though. Would I change this if I could? That’s kind of a hard one. (baad-um-ch). Would we still have broken up the end if we would have been having sex? If not, no Carter. That’s no good. If we would have still broken up then sure, why not. I ended up having premarital sex anyway, so my soul is SOL now(if all that stuff is true).

#2 The choice to stay with my wife, when she was my girlfriend, when she was having a difficult time with life in college. I had it easy in college, most of it was paid for by my parents, and I didn’t have to work very hard to do well. My wife had to pay her entire way which made it not a good time for her. She battled depression, etc., etc. I can vividly recall a moment sitting on her kitchen floor by myself after I had thrown my keys against the wall as hard as I could out of frustration, feeling the metal dog tag that I had dented on the key ring. I thought, “should I stay, or should I go.” I think I made the right choice.

#3 The choice to become an Engineer and work at Opposite of Dog. I’ve talked about this in previous posts. This ones a bit harder. Do I still go to UW-Madison to do whatever? If not, would I still have met my wife? Overall I’m pretty happy with what I do, as much as I bitch, so I don’t think I’d change this even with the chance. The choice to work at Opposite of Dog is tricky too. Both my wife and I are starting to not mind Peoria as much and have friends and things to do here now. If I had the chance I might have held out longer and taken the rotational job at Harley. Life would be different, but not worse.