the other side of the coin

There's a particular sadness that comes with making a choice, and that's the part I sometimes get caught up in. The other side of the coin. That scrawny kid that didn't get picked.

 

I've been known to make bad decisions, sometimes just so I can pick the underdog. Sometimes just to make sure it was the wrong decision.

 

And where do all the possibilities that will never become realities go? Do they just fall off into the universe, waiting to be called up in a fleeting moment or fit of nostalgia? Do they become the worst things, doubt, regret?

 

Aren't those the worst things?

 

And didn't they start off innocent enough, as just the other option, the possibility that for whatever reason, we didn't go with?

 

I guess I'm asking because I made the 'right' choices, took the brighter path, followed directions from Those Who Would Know, and yet, I'm still in unfamiliar and unfriendly territory.

 

No, it doesn't make sense to pine away over the turns I did not choose, the roads I did not go down, but it is perhaps easier than forcing myself to continue plunging down uncertain paths in the knowledge that sometimes the things that look the most right don't even guarantee to get you where you want to go.