“If you could see your life from start to finish, would you change things?”

January of 1997 I flew from California to Salt Lake City, where I was met by my now-husband at the airport. We had “known” each other only through chat rooms, instant messages, emails, and telephone calls. It had only been ten days, but it was a life-changing ten days.

One of my best memories of that weekend was watching the film “Somewhere in Time” together. It was a favorite of both of ours, so it was a great “date” activity. I was coming off of 14 years of physical and mental abuse, so I was more fragile than I’d ever imagined. As we watched the movie, I started wondering if my hope of one day having romance and true love in my life was a real possibility. At some point I just burst into tears. Some 14 years later, Darryl and I were able to visit Mackinac Island and had our picture taken in front of the Grand Hotel. I have that picture on my desk at work. It represents one of my fondest memories of this worthwhile relationship.

Friday night we went to see a movie that dealt with time and language, among other things. The main character asks, “If you could see your life from start to finish, would you change things?” Darryl has recently said that he's afraid that if he had known how challenging life would be for him once he married me, he would never have done so. While this makes me sad, it also makes perfect sense to me. Not only was I broken, but my kids were high maintenance. I had no idea myself at the time. I have to wonder whether I would have decided not to jump into the mess before me if I had known it was there. Now that I am in a place where we have one last child about to leave the nest, and I feel safe and warm and loved in our marriage, I am so grateful that we could not see what we would face in the years ahead of us at the time. Each of us has also said that the tremendous trials we faced before ever meeting one another helped shape who we are and how we approach our marriage. Would it have been as sweet if we had not suffered so much beforehand? Would we have been able to get through the tough times, had we not already known much worse? That is something we will never really know for sure.

In some TV shows, beings from different planets start out older and get younger. Imagine that! On this planet we have the saying, “Youth is wasted on the young!” As I grow older and learn more about myself and try to smooth my rough edges, I regret that I am growing older physically and don’t have all the experiences ahead of me that I’m sure I botched in my younger days. Who wouldn’t wish to go back to some pivotal moment in life to approach it with perspective and the wisdom we gain through our lives, just to have a do-over?

But today is the day the Lord hath made. I don’t wallow in the past or wish I could go back. If I did go back and changed something I felt was a huge mistake on my part, what would I come “home” to find I had lost as a result?

My best friend and husband is one of the tender mercies the Lord has given me. I am so grateful that I have him and get to keep him. My goal is to live in each moment and appreciate them at the time. May we all be able to do the same:  Make your world better, and all our little worlds combined will be a better place as a whole.