My story is littered with the hypothetical scenarios of what could have happened. And most of those are apparent in my posts, The Beginning, The Longest Week of My Life: Part One, and The Longest Week of My Life: Part Two. But there are a couple things I left out that are really very important.
Most of my what-ifs stem from my time in college. In college, I got engaged. I was over the moon about getting to marry
the man of my dreams, but we decided to wait until after we had both
graduated. I graduated first, December 2002, then he would graduate in
May of 2003. We'd set the date for our simple ceremony for May 24, 2003,
just after graduation and a couple months before he would start his
master's degree.
Before I graduated from college, I had an amazing opportunity. I was offered a student seasonal position working at Walt Disney World. I am a big herald for Disney magic. It's a place, unlike any other, where dreams come true and magic happens. I had an offer, not only to be part of the magic and help make dreams come true, but see behind the scenes. I'd be able to meet other people like me who had Disney fever. I imagine what a boost listing Walt Disney would have on my resume. But all I can do is imagine and dream about it. I turned down the offer because it would happen during the semester when I should plan a wedding. I kick myself for it frequently.
So I was at home planning the wedding, not in Orlando making kids smile. Things were on track for a beautiful wedding, until one visit to see my darling fiance during our semester apart, things disintegrated. Without getting into the details, which have no impact on this hypothetical line, I left the mountains without my ring for the first time in years.
You may be asking yourself what the relevance of these two things are. Well, had I gotten married in May as planned, I would have been working any job I could get my hands on, whether it came with health insurance or not. In my story, I found a job with good pay, great hours, and health insurance. Without health insurance I would have never gone to the ophthalmologist... game over. Had I taken the job with Disney, one of two things could have happened. We could have delayed the wedding until I got back... see previous hypothetical. Or what if I'd been offered a more permanent position with Disney? I probably would have had insurance to fix anything that came up, but would I have noticed anything amiss if I hadn't been doing camera work for my sister? The rest is history.
Because I don't like leaving loose ends, we reconciled our issues that caused the break-up and the once upon a time fiance and I are now happily married, going on twelve years.
