The Butterfly Effect

“I got one,” my husband said, which is always my cue to pay attention to the hypothetical question he’s about to ask.

I put the bookmark in my book and laid the book next to me on the couch.

“Would you rather have a million dollars…”

“Okay,” I said, already having a feeling the second option was going to be my answer.

“Or be able to go back to when you were ten years old, knowing everything that you know now?”

Thoughts of choosing a different career path other than teaching, avoiding all the terrible relationships I was in during my twenties, and not letting my anxiety get the best of me flew through my mind at warp speed.

“I don’t even have to think about that one,” I said. “I’d go back in time. Do you know how many things I’d do differently? I would probably have a million dollars anyway now because I wouldn’t become a teacher, that’s for sure,” I joked.

He laughed.

“What would you do?” I asked.

“If I knew what I knew now, like what it would take to get to the NFL and stuff, I’d go back,” he said. (My husband played high school, college, and semi-pro football before we met.)

I continued to replay this idea over in my mind. The idea of going back and doing things over sounds enticing, but how much of your life would it change, and maybe not always for the better? It’s interesting to think about how far each ripple in the waves of our lives will really take us.

One thing that I think I would do differently if I could go back in time would be to finish college at the university where I started. I attended Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State University) for three semesters before coming home and taking a year off. I entered the university wanting to go into journalism or graphic design, but the art classes I needed to take to fulfill the graphic design requirements included drawing, which I did not enjoy and wound up being terrible at. The professors in my writing classes were harsh critics, and in reality, probably were giving me the kind of harsh criticism my writing needed to take it to the next level.

But for someone who was used to getting excellent grades without even trying, I found the “short sentences continue to plague your writing” comments discouraging. I ended up finishing my undergrad degree at a university here in St. Louis, but over the years I have thought back to those decisions and wished I’d just grown a backbone and powered through the classes. Aren’t crabby professors one of the stereotypes of professors in movies? There were other factors in my decision to come back to St. Louis as well, including some unavoidable family stuff, but I definitely remember feeling lost as far as what direction I wanted to go in career-wise.

The flip side of this is that when I came home and later began attending University of Missouri St. Louis, I started working at a catering company. One of my coworkers had the parents of my dog Marley, and when the dogs had an unexpected litter of beagle/golden retriever mix puppies, I got to choose one. I named her Marley and had her for almost sixteen years. She was the best dog I could have ever asked for.

In my teaching career, I have met some amazing people and had some rewarding experiences. I made some lifelong friends, including my friend Eric who was in my wedding and is also the person one of the characters in my novel is based on.

When I left the school where Eric and I had taught together for five years, I started teaching at a high school about thirty minutes away, and although my experience there was what ultimately made me leave the education field, I learned a lot. It was while working at this school that I started to put more efforts into my ghostwriting and editing career: I needed something to distract me from the stress, so I built my website, took some marketing classes, and started learning all I could about freelancing in my free time. Through one of these classes I met my friend Alix, who is now also my writing accountability partner. If I had continued teaching at the school with Eric, I might have stayed complacent in my teaching career.

*Edit: On a much smaller scale, I woke up about forty-five minutes later than normal this morning. By the time I fed the animals, got dressed, and got out the door for my run, the sun was already beaming down. I decided to just do a quick three miles, which meant cutting a few corners out of my usual route. When I was on the home stretch, less than a quarter mile from my house, I saw a woman standing on the sidewalk. She had a leash in each hand, and at the end of each leash was an adorable dog. I didn’t even realize the woman was trying to get my attention (I was too busy looking at the dogs, because of course I was) until I came right up on a huge turtle in the street, directly in my path and likely the path of a car.

“Oh my gosh,” I panted. “I didn’t even see him. I was looking at your dogs. They’re adorable!”

“I can’t move him because I don’t have a free hand,” she said. “But I can’t just let him sit there. He will probably get run over.”

I agreed, and I picked up the turtle and placed him on the other side of the sidewalk, pointing towards a field.

“Thank you!” she called out. “Now I can enjoy my walk without feeling bad!”

As I started running again, I was reminded of this post and the butterfly effect of me getting a late start to my run.

I could go on and on, but the point is that each decision we make ultimately affects another decision, even if we don’t see it at the time. I might have avoided teaching knowing what I know now, but then I would have missed out on some friendships. I might have chosen a different college experience knowing what I know now, but then I would have missed out on having my dog.

We are right where we are supposed to be, even if it doesn’t always feel like it at the time.