Creative Writing Prompt 19

OK so to explain. One of the items on my Day Zero Project list is to write 20 different things from the website http://creativewritingprompts.com/ and this one is the first one I have tried. Nobody said it had to be fiction.

There was once a chance I didn't take and I have often wondered what would have happened in my life had I taken it. Would I be where I am now? If you believe that your path is already laid out then by that logic, yes I would have ended up here. It would have definitely have been an interesting journey.

My journey was already pretty interesting and certainly had more than a few rocky moments, but what if I had in fact went to Finland for five months. I know one thing that would be different, I would know another language and would no doubt have a handful of Finnish pen pals.

Would I still have travelled to Australia? Would I still have met Garth? What about my best friends that I have here? Would I have fallen in love with Graham? Would I have come back from Finland, if I had went?

So many questions and no answers. Maybe in a parallel universe I actually did take the chance and go on the exchange programme. Maybe in another world I told Martin to get stuffed instead of changing my mind because he told me “he had needs and therefore we would have to have an open relationship”. In other words he couldn't handle the idea of me going away and wanted free reign to cheat. Now for my Australian readers, Finland to Glasgow is maybe a 3 hour flight away maximum and at the time cheap flights were all the rage. We could have seen each other at the weekends. But C'est la vie. Whatever will be shall be and a variety of other fate loving sayings.

Now I haven't thought about that missed trip to Finland in a very long time, I made my peace with it. Initially it ate away at me, especially after Martin and I split. Why did I let him make my decision for me, what was it about our relationship that kept me in Scotland? To this day I have never figured out an answer to this question. I guess I could put it down to being young and very naïve, but in all seriousness I made my choice. At that time the relationship we had was a good one, I guess I didn't want to ruin that. As it is, now, he won't even talk to me but that's ok I bare him no ill will. He came into my life, he left my life, I took away the lessons from that. It's the same with the Graham relationship. I bare him no ill will and I have learned my lessons.

I regret nothing. And when I am old I would rather look back on my life and regret the things I have done rather than those I did not do.

Now in the parallel universe, I hope that the me there went to Finland and had the time of her life. However, the real me, the me writing this, had a different adventure and is still on that roller-coaster ride and loving every minute of it.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it.