I suppose just about every American close to my age was rocking out last night to the Beatles Tribute. I hated to think that I was a college freshman that spring. Fifty years seems impossible to comprehend.

I’m currently reading a Stephen King novel where the protagonist has gone back in time to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from killing JFK. There are many questions presented regarding what he calls the Butterfly affect. When you make one change, thousands of things change along with it?

The book has made me wonder if I’d want to go back to 1964 and change some of the decisions I made or the actions I took. Should I have married my high school sweetheart instead of going to college? Would I have been happier living in my home town for the rest of my life instead of all the moving around I’ve done in fifty years? I wouldn’t have had my two fantastic children. Or they would have been someone else. Or would time have brought me to this exact same spot with these same children some how, some way?

I haven’t finished King’s novel – perhaps tonight. I’m anxious to know if he goes through with it. If time will allow it to happen. King states repeatedly that the past fights change. So maybe he won’t be able to do it.

As for me, there are many things I say I would like to do over, do differently, not do at all!!  But would I go back to 1964 and start over? The answer is a resounding “no”. I prefer to learn from the pain, accept my poor decisions, enjoy the way life has played out.

It is an interesting concept to ponder. Is there a point in your life when you wish you’d taken a different road? What would life have been like if you had?