What Could Have Been

“You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.” 

~Jan Glidewell 

The other night I was talking to Ms. L and I was feeling a little down because I had a lot of things on my mind.  I was thinking of all the curveballs that I have been thrown in life.  I was doing a lot of wondering about what could have been.  

What if I had done what I was supposed to do all the way through high school and had been able to get a full scholarship to the college of my choice inNew York?  What if when I did go to college, not necessarily the one that I wanted to go to, and I had been better prepared for college life and had gotten the grades that I should’ve gotten or at least sought help when I was failing?  What if I hadn’t gotten in a really bad relationship and gotten so steered off course from what my vision of my life was?  What if I hadn’t met a man who I thought was the love of my life and had a child with him which derailed me going back to school until the late age of 27?  

The truth is my life would more than likely be at a very different place, maybe even where I envisioned it being.  Had I done all the things that I should’ve done in the correct time frame that it should have been done in I may very well already be into my writing career and perhaps even a lot closer to the top of that media mogul ladder that I am now struggling to climb.  But in talking to Ms. L. the other night she helped me to see that everything does in fact happen for a reason and that just because the course of my journey has had to change, the vision has always remained the same and that’s what matters the most.  

If I had never been directed to Morgan State University (which was not the school I had always wanted to attend) then I would’ve never met Ms. L. and I can not imagine going through this life without a friend as good as her and as supportive and motivating as her.  If I hadn’t met the man who I thought was the love of my life, then I would not have my amazing daughter and I can not even begin to say how thankful I am for her and I wouldn’t trade her for all the money and success in the world.  

So many of the things that I have been through are responsible for shaping the person I am today.  But in all of that my vision of what I wanted in terms of my career goals and what I feel God put me on this earth to do have never changed.  I have never questioned what I am meant to do.  Now I may not have answered all of the previous doors that opportunity was knocking at, and looking back perhaps those doors were not meant for me to answer, but I certainly believe that there are still more opportunities out there that I may just have to build my own door to.  

What could have been in anyone’s life is not always how things should’ve been and I firmly believe that God knows your path before you even develop a path in your own mind.  So who am I to question what could have been when God already has a plan for what will be and the least that I can do, after all he has seen me through and all the talents and abilities that he has blessed me with, is follow the path that he has mapped out for me, not the one that I had mapped out for myself.  Until next time…Don’t get sidetracked by the curveballs, just change your plan of how to attack them the next time you’re up to bat!

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

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