Turning points: The lives we don't lead
"Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice." - William J Bryan
In 2020, in between two lockdowns, I read Matt Haig’s book The Midnight Library. The premise is that between life and death, there is a library filled with books that tell the stories of the lives you didn’t live. The lives you might have lived if you had made different choices. There are an infinite number of books. The main character, Nora, has attempted suicide, and explores some of the lives she could have lived as she teeters between life and death.
In one, she moved to Australia with her best friend, has many tattoos, and drinks too much. In another, she is married and has a child, and lives a relatively ordinary, happy life. She opens the page in one of the books to find she never left the band she was in as a teen, and is now wildly famous. Further down the aisle, she is an Olympian swimmer. In some, she takes anti-depressants, in others she does not. She finds out what would have happened if she stayed with her ex. In each book, she learns more about herself, and her relationships with her friends and family.
The book conceptualises the Many Worlds Theory; the idea that there are an infinite different number of versions of reality, and they’re all happening simultaneously. It’s impossible to read a book like that and not consider what your own Midnight Library might look like. What are the decisions that led you to who you are and where you are today, and what if you had made different ones?
Here are some of mine:
What if I had pursued journalism? I studied New Media & English in UL, and wrote for the student newspaper throughout college. Editor of the newspaper was a paid sabbatical position, and most people expected me to run for it in my final year, including me. Instead, in 2009, I moved to Abu Dhabi to teach Grade 1 kids for two years, and stayed in the Middle East for six years. I made that choice for a few reasons: I had gone through a breakup and thought getting away would be good; I was taking Class A drugs on a regular basis and thought moving to a country where drugs weren’t tolerated would break that habit, and, secretly, I was scared of running in the election and losing.
That decision shaped my life in many ways. Many of my closest friends are people I met in the Middle East. I got sober in Dubai. I got to travel to places like Vietnam, Kenya, and Jordan. While Ireland was being ravaged by recession, I started building a career in Communications & Marketing. There’s a lot to be grateful for there. But I’d quite like a peek at the book that tells the story of what happened if I stayed and won the election. Two of the student newspaper editors from the time I spent in UL are now news editors at national newspapers. A classmate works for CNN. Would I have been a journalist, covering Covid and Ukraine and everything else that goes on in the world today? Would I be happier? In that version of my life, am I married? Do I have kids? Who are my friends?
These are not sad thoughts, or regrets, just musings.
The other major decision was to give up drinking shortly before I turned 26. At the time I was living in an apartment in Downtown Dubai that overlooked the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. I could watch the famous fountain show there from my balcony. I had a job that paid reasonably well for my age and the stage of my career I was at. And I was drinking myself to blackout several times a week. At first just at weekends, and later once a twice in the middle of the week two. I was getting sharp pains around my liver, even when I hadn’t drank for a couple of days. My life was unsurprisingly messy.
Like the decision to emigrate, getting sober was a major turning point in my life. It led to the loss of some friendships, and the deepening of others. It brought me into a community that valued spirituality, something I was devoutly opposed to up to that point. It changed my life in all kinds of practical ways: I got better with money, started looking for a better job, and ultimately decided to move home and start a new life in Dublin. It’s honestly hard for me to even imagine what my life would be like today if I hadn’t gotten sober. Would I even still be alive? Would I have a job? Would I still be in Dubai? I’d like to read that book too, but I can’t imagine it has a happy ending.
There are a billion more books in this library. A billion different ways my life could have turned out if a butterfly fluttered its wings in a way that caused me to make a different decision. What if I had realised he didn’t love me sooner, and extricated him from my life? What if I had gone on Erasmus? What if I had picked a different Masters? I don’t think there’s a universe anywhere near this one where I’m an Olympian or a rock star, but maybe there is one not so different from this one where I’m an author.
I feel a strange nostalgia for the lives I didn’t live.
And I wonder about the choices I’m making today, and how I’ll look back on them in 5, 10 or 20 years. Should I try to go into politics? Try and make it as a writer? Focus on finding a husband? How do I make sure that when I get to the end, the book I wrote is the one I wanted? It’s a little overwhelming to think a small decision - maybe one I didn’t even put much thought into - could shape my whole future.
I highly recommend the Midnight Library if you want to do a little navel-gazing, thinking about all that you could have been and all that you still could be.
If you enjoyed this essay, leave me a little comment about a turning point in your life where you wonder what might have happened if you had made a different choice.
Thanks for this beautiful piece of writing Katie.