What If?

"What the...Oh my God! Oh My God!"

It was as if the voices in the back of the truck were coming from another place. My mind was unable to conceive the reality of what was happening. I was strangely calm, was reminded of the hard rain pounding with a frenzy on the windshield, of the wipers moving in slow motion across the window, and that up ahead was certain death.

In the opposite lane was a large-size passenger bus, coming up along the bend in the highway. Steaming around it, heading our way while driving in our lane, was a transport truck only metres away from colliding head-on into our vehicle. My hands were still, my mind was working over possible escape routes, and I did not even think of panicking and driving off into the neighbouring ditch. Instead, I slowly applied my brakes so as not to hydroplane in the wet road, slightly tugged the wheel in the opposite direction, and breathed a sigh of relief as the big wheeler screamed by us, its heavy load of lumber sitting snuggly behind on its track.

What if things had been different? What if the bus driver had jerked in fear and cut off any escape route? What if the transport truck wheels slipped in the slick conditions, flipped over and crashed straight into us? What if I had lost control and our truck jumped the ditch and rolled end over end...what if? What if my life ended today? Gone in the intake of breath and never again to be returned to my body?

I went for a walk tonight, so many hours after that near death incident today, and thought about occurences in our lives. How they may change in the blink of an eye, of how roads become altered through fear or indecision, and how our future is so fragile yet so strong in the same breath. I can only hope you see what I see. Here you go, and may you enjoy.

The sun was setting in the late evening night, splintering through a layer of clouds, and forcibly sending rays of light over the Atlantic Ocean. The light travelled across the water, and the water calmly and gently lapped at my toes as I stood on the sandy shore. What if I had not left Newfoundland as a young boy in the midst of growing? Would my life have been the same? Would I have still gone to school, or for that matter, would I have ever left the Island of Newfoundland?

What if I had never had a dream about a girl that would send me on a wild goose chase through different countries, along both the western and eastern coast of Canada, and years in the mountains? What if instead, my life was boring and dull, without the pain of loss, and the trials and tribulations of taking chances to only watch as they become failures? Would I be happy with a life of ordinary measures? Would I have settled for someone just so I did not have to spend my life alone? What if I believed that regret could fix the wrongs in my life and make it all new again?

What if we never took a chance on our dreams? What if we believed all the naysayers who tell us that dreams are for fools, that they only consist of heartache and rough roads? What if you let all your misery build upon your shoulders and never allowed yourself the right to control your own life?

What if?

But, what if you reached deep inside and found a well of hope? That this well of hope gave strength you never knew existed, and that this new strength gave you reason to want the rough roads? What if you now saw a new day rising on the wind, and that this new day was yours to run with...to run screaming and laughing into the future, scissors in one hand, and desire in the other? What if you knew all this and more was at your fingertips and all you need to do is reach out and softly brush your palm against your dreams? What if, suddenly, they became tangible and oh so real?

Would you be afraid? Would you feel the fear and yet still carry forth? Would you freeze up and run back the way you came? Or would you smile and give thanks? Would you see the possibilty in fighting for the right of your life, and make your dreams a reality in your waking days? Would you push a little harder when days seem heavy, would you smile a little easier when a smile is hard to come by, and would you run when walking is just too damn slow?

It awaits us all, people, it awaits us all. Right in front of your eyes, even if you cannot see it just quite yet, is an outstretched palm. Inside is hope, inside is strength, and inside is everything you have ever wanted and more. In the end, it comes down to how much you truly want it...it comes down to how much you truly want to live. Grab it, people, grab it and find yourself one day walking in foreign lands, holding your soulmate close in your arms, or playing a musical symphony for all the world to hear...feel love in your heart and wisdom in your soul.

What if indeed. Until we meet again, people, until we meet again.

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things that we did not do that is inconsolable."
- Sydney J. Harris