What if...

What if...?

      Today I was wondering about a question that almost everybody ask in their free time, an hypothetical conundrum of sorts that assaults the mind of the vague, the unprepared, and mostly the everyday people. Where were I could be if something in the past would have changed for some reason?
      The real reason was related to a series of thought provoking questions and activities throw around in a classroom full of people that, like me, were pondering the enormous possibilities and the "What ifs" that this question question posits.

      Imagine that, for example, my grandmother never read the “Ancient Civilizations” books that I relish, in my childhood -and partly were responsible for my inclination towards anthropology as a major and, maybe, a career-, what could be of that boy that crave to know more of cultures long gone? And, more importantly, What if I had never pursue this choice and instead incline towards what my family thought was the best option, and even for some, my destiny: Medicine.

      It is not a convoluted issue for me because, from time to time, this very picture of me doing what for the eyes of my family was the thing I was supposed to do, is present and vivid. Not because I have some kind of regrets, but simply because it is a matter of a necessary exercise, one where I see and convince myself that no matter how things may have turned on, as curious as it sounds I choose the right -and difficult- path.

      The picture I imagine involves a dear friend of mine who was, in fact, in love with me, but I never realised that in the time; another friend told me, like four years past the point where I was now living in Mexico City and nothing could be done. This girl was working hard to get into Medical School, and I was tagging along.
      If my past were different and I decided to stay in my hometown, probably the two of us were be accepted into medicine. The mechanics of our relationship at the time was of mutual admiration and understanding. I do not know how to put it, but we were a team, a good oiled machine that got through many bad experiences, but in the end good things and pretty great moments arose. Probably what blinded me at the time was that it now sounds that what we had was a Platonic relationship.
      Medicine would not sound bad if she were alongside, but what if we had also developed the romantic relationship that she wanted? This is the only thing that haunts me today, and what bothers me is that I have never know what become of her...