choosing

In middle age, looking back, it is the subtlest shift that shifts everything: from the late adolescent who says I really must choose the best path to the young adult who says I chose the best path, at least for me to, finally, simply: I chose. I chose and it might have been otherwise. I chose, with some combination of seeking prudence and exercising heedless whimsy and life arriving in its made-available forms. The forms made unavailable still stand — somewhere, uncountable. If my choices had been different, everything would have been just…different: a quantum rippling.