Philosophical musings

I've tried to write this several times and I just can't get it right. I think I'm overthinking it...

I've been thinking a lot lately about the twists and turns life makes. About the ones you cause and the ones that are thrust upon you. I decided to move to Seattle and I decided to move to California from Arizona. Those are roads I picked voluntarily and I rarely look back at them and wonder what would have happened if I hadn't done that. I know what would've happened if I had stayed in AZ, I would've gone nuts. Crazy fucking crazy nuts. There was a brief time when I moved up here and was unemployed that I wondered about the wisdom of moving from California, but that was mostly job related and honestly I haven't thought about it since then.

I decided to leave Alaska, but that was a choice that was thrust upon me. I mean, I guess I didn't HAVE to leave, but could you honestly tell your crying mother that although you don't have a real job yet (having just graduated from college) or aren't really doing anything worthwhile, you couldn't possibly leave your tiny studio apartment in the ghetto (and yes there were ghettos in Fairbanks) and your crappy bookstore job to help out your family? (I will say, though, that 4 years after that point I had a good job and a still rather vivid memory of the longest 8 months of my life when it was implied that I leave my life for a 2nd time I did manage to turn my mom down.) I think because Michelle & I are planning this trip to Alaska in October, I've been ruminating a lot on what my life would've been like had I never left Alaska. Thus far, it is the one point in my life where I sometimes wish I could go back and have something different happen. I guess, though, if that were the case a lot of things would be different. And maybe that's what I'm really looking for...