And you may find yourself
in a beautiful house,
with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself —
Well… how did I get here?
It was a year ago today that I packed up my belongings, said my tearful goodbyes, and headed off in my mother's Subaru wagon. It was hot — in the ninties — when we left Philadelphia that afternoon.
When we pulled into the parking lot at Stop & Shop in Plymouth many hours later, my light pink skirt, blue tank top and flip flops felt a little ridiculous in the 47-degree-weather.
Things can change when you're not looking, I guess.
Lately I've been wondering about all the things that make you the way you are. About all the tiny moments that seemed like nothing at the time that sent you down a different path. Of all the things you thought would change everything that, years later, you can hardly remember.
Of all the things that lead you to where you are, how many did you decide?
It was just about five years ago (on May 27th, it will be official) that I graduated from college. I look at things I wrote back then and am almost a little sad at how different things were back then, or at least, how different I thought they were. But I remember being in that mind, thinking those things, writing them down. I wish I could go back and tell myself the stupid things I worried about were not worth my time. I wish I could make myself look around and notice a bit more of what actually mattered, but then, I'm not sure that would've been the right way to do things either.
To answer the question: not much has been my decision. When I was little, where I went, who I saw and what I did were largely determined by circumstances not up to me. My parents moved to Plymouth, so I went to school there. I was born a twin, so Liz was everywhere I went. They picked a school and sent me there, and I obliged by working hard enough to get grades that would mostly make my parents happy.
So how did I get here? At some point, I know there are things I decided, that I did that set this particular fate in motion. But at the time, I mosty had no idea.
I applied to Penn mostly on a whim, and I applied early decision because I didn't really consider that I'd actually get in and have to go. Not that I minded, but when I dropped my application into the mailbox, I did so with only the slightest inkling that it would really change much in my life.
And the people you meet? The ones who become important to you? How did they come into your life? After family, they all become coincidence or circumstance. The neighbor from across the hall who happens to share his hot pot and invite you on a five hour shopping trip, the girl from the 80s Dance Party whose website you happen to find the next morning, turn around at a party and find your next best friend — these are not people you were destined to find, whose lives so clearly mirror your own that of course your paths would cross. They could have just as easily passed you by, and how would your life have been different then?
And then, of course, there are the things people do to you, that you never expected but cannot help but react to. Or the things that just happen, unexpectedly and permanently, that demand everything else must also respond.
I wish, sometimes, I could map out a perfect chain of events that explained how I got from the hopital in Coshocton, Ohio to my living room in Queens, 23 years later. But the truth is these things can't be mapped out, and I couldn't even identify all the moments from the last year that took me from Philadelphia from here.
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