Questioning...

There are but two lasting bequests we can give our children;
The first is roots, the last wings.

Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if you had done something differently in your past? Or if you had not done something? If you had just made a different decision?

Those are the questions that have been plaguing my mind the last few weeks. Where would I be had I not left Calgary? Had I not moved to Jamaica? Had I stayed in Toronto rather than moving to the rainforest?

And maybe more than that, what would or could have happened if things had worked out with this person or that person? Would I still be single? Would I be married or happily shacked up - because I don't really see myself ever being married - or worse, would I be divorced?

Don't get me wrong, I like my life. I'm happy. But what would be different? It's like one of those choose your own ending books I loved as a child. Go to page seven the story turns out one way but go to page eleven and it turns out completely different.

You may be wondering if I am so happy with my life why I have all these questions. It is solely to do with Facebook. I love the reconnection that site allows people. I've gotten back in contact with a girl who was my best friend in elementary school, I've reconnected with a teacher who had a great impact on my life, someone who made a lonely girl less lonely, and Facebook makes it very easy to keep in some form of daily contact with family members who live in other places. But the down side I'm finding is that I get glimpses of other people's lives, people from my past, and I wonder what their life is like now. We started out in the same place and yet we've ended up in such different ones.

I think, and mind you I only think, I envy those people who have lived in the same place all their lives. Who know how deep their roots go in that place. My life has never been like that. By the third grade, I was living in my third house, albeit all of them were in Calgary but in different areas, different school districts, different groups of friends. By the ninth grade, I was bunking for a while in my grandparents house, I started a new school, did a month and a half there and then moved to Jamaica where everything changed again. After I finished high school, in Jamaica, I went back to Calgary, then back to Jamaica, then to Toronto, then back to Jamaica, then back to Toronto, then here. It's been fun and there is very little of it I'd change given the chance but my roots don't belong to a place. Instead, they belong to my culture and my family. How would things be different if they belonged to a place? Or even, would things be any different? Maybe everything is preordained from before you are born.

Cheers :-)
- Rainforest Mommy