Last year prior to having visitors at my summer house, I decided it would be a good idea to ask if they would like a fire in the fireplace some evening.
It's summer. It's warm. I have had the house for several years and haven’t had a fire in the fireplace since it was turned on at closing. Someone said all kinds of things multiply in the chimney, like spiderwebs and bird nests. So I decided it might be a good idea to have the chimney swept.
It seems like a lot of people around here have fires in their fireplaces and need sweeps. It took a few weeks for the sweeper to show up just before my visitors. He examined the chimney from below and asked if I would come and have a look. I wasn’t really excited about playing Santa in the fireplace, but crawled in there. Looking up, there was a big hole in my chimney.
What if I had not called the sweeper? If I had built a fire, would the carbon monoxide have escaped enough not to kill us all? Or just left us partially brain dead?
There are so many “what if's" in life, “The Road Not Taken”. My “what if’s” tend to land me in a pile of guilt. Logic doesn’t seem to trump emotion. What if I had insisted my spouse go to the doctor sooner? Would the cancer treatment not have ended up destroying their brain?
What if I had insisted (suggested) they select the other dog? Would it not have resulted in training difficulties?
What if I had stayed with my first career? Or second? For certain, I wouldn’t be making decisions about sweeping the chimney
What if my school administrator in high school had said no when I wanted to start a school newspaper? Would I be an editor now? Even though an amateur?
What if my spouse and I hadn’t moved from other states to where we met? Where we fell in love, where we gave our lives to each other? Would we have encountered the wonderful people we have met? Those people who loved my spouse, and cared for them until they died? Those same people who adopted me after they died (who I inherited?)
What if I had died first, and left them totally alone and frightened in their dementia? Alone in their grief and grieving?
There are so many decisions, big and small influencing our lives, and there is no way to predict the outcomes. My spouse was adamant about outcomes.They insisted that “sometimes things work out for the best”. That following a disappointment, what if the initial outcome had occurred and it was not good? What if we had plowed through, thick and thin, to make a decision happen and it was not the right decision?
I find it hard to be patient. If I have a goal in mind, I tend to become obsessive about achieving it, not always to the best outcome.
They were decisive, proclaimed that “when it’s right, you will know it”. Their decisions almost always (almost) were the right ones. They didn’t worry themselves with “what if’s”.
I guess that was what they had me for.
Let me know how your “what If’s” are being kept under control. I care.
Contemplation: There is no predicting what will turn out for the best.
Sincerely,
Lynn Brooke
© 2023 Our New Chances
Photo Credit: © 2023 Rachel Gareau
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