This life

I think at one time or another we all wonder about where we might be if we'd made one different choice in our life. In some other life, on some other Friday night, I might be just getting home from my polished, important career, wearing my professional dressy clothes...instead of jeans stained with first-grade sized shaving cream handprints and a bright green "I read!" t-shirt worn at the school assembly. I might be getting ready to go out to the trendy places you see on TV, to meet my girlfriends and gossip over drinks...instead of eating left-over chicken pot pie and waiting on my basketball coach husband to come home from practice. I might have more money and more "me" time...instead of calling the gas company to get set up on monthly billing so I can pay the $500 it took to fill up our propane tank, and cooking frozen pizzas, not only for my own kids, but also for the neighbor boy who almost lives here. BUT...I might have slept alone at night...instead of curled into the arms of the guy whose known me longer than almost anyone. I might have had only the TV for company...instead of sitting with a lovely, animated teenaged girl and getting filled in on the soap opera that is high school...and being entertained by a talented boy who is learning cool tricks with his yo-yo...and drinking coffee from a slightly chipped cup painted with a lop-sided snowman by little hands years ago. That other life might have been - but thank God, this one is!