Have you ever stopped and noticed how one innocent decision can change your life and the lives of so many?

Pandora, do you ever in your heart of hearts ever wish you had not gone to that party, or would you never have had it otherwise?

Sure. Probably if I had not went away to school I would have married my high school boyfriend. He would have cheated on me and I would be divorced. Maybe with kids, not sure. I might not have a college degree, I never would have met my college friends. I never would have lived in the midwest (for college) where I was freezing cold and was an emotional mess when I went back home after college being near my exboyfriend, so I moved to Florida.

Every so often I say to my husband, “Can you believe we met at a club and now we are married?” I find it fascinating, I don’t know why. We met in Florida.

Actually, I think either my boyfriend before him (first guy I dated in Florida) or my husband caused my GYN problems, and if I had not slept with either of them I might have lived a life without chronic pain and so many physical problems and I might have the children I believe I was supposed to have. It is something I generally push away in my thoughts, because there is nothing I can do, what’s done is done, but I don’t believe my illness is just my body haywire. It has destroyed a part of my life and a part of my soul.

If I had not met my husband I never would have lived in North Carolina or Tennessee. I went with him wherever his career took us. In NC I did IVF which resulted in an increase in my medical symptoms and they were horrible to me during the process. The doctor did not take my symptoms seriously. They also let me endure the horrible pain of egg retrieval instead of giving me drugs to sedate me well, and after all that I could not physically fathom doing more to have a baby. I now believe, without telling the long story, I never should have done IVF, that I did not need to, and that they jumped me to that procedure for money.

I probably would not speak Spanish as well as I do, unless I happened to meet and marry a different guy from a Spanish speaking family where his parents barely speak English.

My parents at times have considered moving near where I live, but always dismissed the thought since we move around and they don’t want to wind up living somewhere and then I move away. I don’t think it was ever a very serious thought except for Florida maybe. Now that I am back in Florida maybe they will think about it again at least part of the year. There are other things stopping them from moving though.

@ZEPHYRA Wouldn’t change a thing. Although I use to joke with my husband about his mom. I told him if I had met his mother a week before we got married that I probably would’ve called off the whole thing.
@JLeslie Wow, that sucks. Sorry about the no kids thing and all the misery you went through. I do hope being with your husband is enough to make it worthwhile.

@Pandora He is a great guy. I love being with him, we have all sorts of adventures, and I still find him gorgeous and adorable and he impresses me all the time. It is a horrible situation with the health thing and the childlessness. For a while I wondered if I left him would I be healthy, have I traded my health, probably shortened my life, for my marriage. But, we have gone sexless for many months at a time sometimes and I never am back to 100%, although I have had years here and there where I was much much better after taking mega mega antibioitics and my husband too. Whatever it is, medical science has not narrowed it down to be able to completely beat it. It’s a long story, a long agonizing story.

There are so many of these, you really can’t count how many of these small changes alter the big picture.

I decided to learn Japanese, so I bought a book to teach me. My friend saw that, and encouraged me to forget Japanese, and go to a night school with her to learn sign language instead. That lead to another friend introducing me to my future wife.

I wanted to go into radio broadcasting, so I studied to get my broadcasting license. When I got it, I applied for a job at the phone company, where I was told many times before they were not hiring, but this time they said they needed someone with that license for Ship to Shore communications. That got me into the company I spent 36 years working for. That provided my lifestyle.

I have many moments like this… my favorite is how I met my current husband.

I was visiting the college I had chosen to attend and met with the chair of my department. He sent me across campus to another building to meet with someone who probably would also be working with me—someone volunteered to escort me to that building. The woman I was to meet wasn’t in her office and I was leaving the building, and ran into a guy who was coming out of the mens bathroom. He knew my escort, and started talking with both of us. A few minutes later, my escort excused herself and left—she told me later that she had seen instant chemistry between us and wanted to make herself scarce.

I found out this guy had gone into the bathroom, but retreated immediately because someone had left a mess.

This guy and I started emailing back and forth, then talking on the phone… 15 months later I married him. If I hadn’t been sent to that building and if someone hadn’t left a mess in the mens bathroom, who knows if we would’ve met.

@linguaphile LOL. Somewhere out there a slob was your match maker and maybe he is making other matches.