The What Ifs

I've been playing the What If game for at least 30 years. What if we move to a new school and the kids hate me? What if I color my hair and it all falls out? What if I take this job and they fire me a week later?

One thing I've learned is that it's never as bad as I imagine it to be, even when it is really, really bad. A year ago I was shaking in fear over my upcoming mammogram. I was crying days beforehand, knowing that it wasn't going to be good news. I was right, it wasn't good news but it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared. Sure, it was bad but I survived.

When I first came home from the hospital after my surgery I could barely take the stairs. I wasn't sleeping well and had to take pain pills and antibiotics several times a night. I remember standing in the bathroom on the first floor emptying my drains and taking my meds thinking how lucky I was that we moved into this house. It set me off on a course of backward what-if thinking to see where it all started.

If we didn't move into the townhouse in June '07 we wouldn't have a 1st floor bathroom that would serve as my midnight refuge. We also wouldn't have a spare bedroom for my mother, my niece and Tobi to stay in while they visited.

If we didn't move in June '07 I am pretty certain that we wouldn't have moved at all. My condo sold super quick, which gave us a nice down payment for the townhouse. If I waited another year the market would have crashed and we would have been stuck with the condo, or had been forced to sell it at a reduce price. And who knows if I would have ever been able to qualify for a mortgage this year. I got the mortgage on my own and as we all know, banks are much more strict these days. I'm betting they wouldn't have been too kind to me.

If I didn't meet Kelly, a new member of the mom's group who just happened to be a realtor, I never would have thought of selling at that point.

If I never started the mom's group, I never would have met Kelly, and the many, many other wonderful women who helped me out during my recovery. I can't imagine having to deal with the cancer and recovery without a fantastic circle of friends.

If the local Mom's Clubs didn't diss me, saying their membership was restricted to stay at home moms, I never would have started my own mom's club for working mothers.

If I never had my darling daughter, I never would have needed a mom's club.

If Matt and I had broken up for the fifth time and actually stayed broken up, I never would have had my beautiful little girl who I was able to breastfeed.

If I failed to answer Matt's odd response to my personal ad way back in June 2001 I never would have met him.

And, if my first husband and I didn't separate in 2000 I wouldn't have been on the dating scene. (Just as Matt wouldn't be on the prowl if he and his first wife didn't separate in 2001.)

So, something as depressing as a divorce kicked off a string of events that brought all these wonderful people into my life. And it allowed me to be exactly where I needed to be when cancer found me, in the 1st floor bathroom draining fluids from my body.

Interesting. Let's see what fun the cancer recovery brings.