I ugly cried reading a book - Olivia Benson is Running Out of Time (I'm not 100% certain that the full title is correct, but I don't want to stop and distract myself by looking it up. Hopefully I'm close enough that if you want to read the book you'll be able to find it based on that.
Amd ua. super ugly cry. Had to blow my nose multiple times and snuggle my emotional support dog for a while (she's just one of my pups but shes the one who fits best of my lap).
The book hangover is real people.
I'm also certain that sobbing is a great way to encourage my kids to read 'but it was such a good book' I wailed.
Anywho. Shall we get on with it?
One life. That's all we get. Better make the most of it, right?
That's what we've always heard, Nicole mused, as she pondered the choice being offered to her.
What if that wasn't the case? What if there were do-overs? Doesn't everyone go through a phase, however long or short, where they think 'if I could do it all over again, here's what I'd do differently'
But what if you were actually presented with the opportunity to re-do/re-live moments? Instead of living with regret or remorse, you could go back and be kinder, say I love you, not have your last moments with them be a fight? To take that moment with your kids that you didn't think was anything but to them was something that changed their reality? What if you could go back?
Would you?
Nicole's head buzzed with activity - the 37 open tabs in her mind all refreshed and 12 of them started playing music/making sounds as possible re-do scenarios flashed through her mind. Palms sweating, she started to shake, breathing becoming shallow - this was what kept her up at night when she desperately needed sleep - all of the things she had done wrong or would have done differently, the times where she had flubbed her words or muddled her point. Was this a dream or a nightmare?
Being the overthinker that she was, not only was her brain doing a rapid fire flashing sequence of every moment that was less than ideal, but also wondering about the butterfly effect - if she re-lived those moments, went back and changed things - would she still be where she was today? Would they? How much would she really change - and would that change be for the better?
Nicole felt her temples throb, her throat tighten, and her heart race. Her vision blurred and she gasped for breath. It was all too much. Too much to think about, to consider, to fret about. What if she chose wrong? What if she made things worse? Would she be able to go back again to fix them? Or was this a one shot deal? What if trying to fix them didn't, or changed things not for the better - after all, learning and growth comes from teh hard times, not the easy ones. Failure is how we learn. Would she be robbing someone of learning a valuable lesson whilst trying to protect them? What would they then do without that lesson/memory/experience?
That's it. Nicole was going to implode. This was all too much. She couldn't think, couldn't fathom what this actually was. What was it actually?
They said she could ask questions, but Nicole wasnt sure she could remember how to speak, let alone articulate the existential, paradoxical complexes she couldnt fully grasp. How can she ask about what she does not know?
She was the main character of her story. She had the chance to go back and make edits/ do simple rewrites. This was her life, her reality. And it mattered. She mattered. The fact that she wanted to do better mattered.
Thats what they were offering. The chance for her to live her best life - the whole of it - because for reasons she still couldnt understand, they needed Nicole to be true to herself to .... well.. they hadn't gotten that far in their explanation yet.
Here was the catch - it was her best life, as she lived it. She wasnt suddenly a lottery winner or from an old money family. She wasn't a glamorous globetrotter, she was herself. Born and raised as she was.
Living her best life also meant that the re-do options were specific to her. Her thoughts, feelings, actions, emotions, and outcomes. Things that she could control. She couldnt go back and change what someone else said, or even the tone with which they said it.
If you want to see what someone really values - it's not their words that matter, but their calendar and their bank statements - where do they spend their time and their money - that shows what they value. Was Nicole living hers?
How were her values being reflected in her interactions with her kids? Was she the parent she thought she would be (since she was told that being a wife and a mother was all she could ever want in life)?
Was she passing on her trauma and issues, or was she breaking the cycle?
THis could be her chance to break the cycle.
Because for Nicole, one life wasn't all she got.
The checkpoints, the indicator events, the moments that stood out in her mind because she felt like she had already lived them, but go a re-do. OMG. This was real.
This.
Was.
Happening.
Had.
Happened.
Nicole gasped so loud she caught her own breath and started to choke on air. Typical of her.
The reason those moments/events stood out - it wasn't the first time she had lived them. The reason she could see what happened if she responded differently or made a different choice as because SHE LIVED THOSE LIVES. It didn't go so well, in the grand scheme of things - whatever they brought forth, good or bad, it wasn't worth it. So she had the opportunity to go back and do it again and choose differently.
Nicole didn't have just one life.
The superbowl trophy toss. Not going to wash the car after arriving home from the road trip. Taking a different route. Joining a facebook group because she signed up for a newsletter because of someone she met at a conference one time.
The conversation about emotions and how all emotions are valid and no one is expected to only have good emotions all the time - we have a range for a reason - that conversation didn't happen the first time around. It was what she wished she had said when her son was crying or her daughter was raging. Its unreasonable to expect people to be happy all the time, so why do we expect that of ourselves, of our kids?
How many times have we seen an instagram post or a tiktok video and gone 'damn! I wish I could be articulate like that' or 'why didnt I put it that way? ' or 'fuck. THats what I should have said'
Imagine if you had been given the opportunity to press pause and think things through before responding/acting - but without the awkward pause that can come when an overthinker runs through 100000 scenarios and takes slightly too long to reply?
Or better yet - go through the scenario as is, then take time and reflect - just like how Nicole does her best email proofing after she's hit send; but instead of sending she can go back and make edits,knowing that she will change the outcome.
That is what living more than one life was. That is what they offered Nicole.
And that is what Nicole had already been living, albeit oblivious to a point.
This was all too much. Nicole couldnt
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