165. In Another Life – Ilana Masad
Mesdemoiselles de l’Isle Adam by René Magritte, 1942
What if, in other words, I allowed myself to see the imagined lives unlived as part and parcel of a life well lived?
When I was seven, I decided that I wanted to be an actor when I grew up. My parents let me take acting classes at a local community center, and I worked my little heart out at it. I even attended a performing-arts junior high for a couple years. When I didn’t get into the high school’s audition-based drama program, I pretty much gave up, letting that dream die a long, painful death.
In another life, I didn’t quit. I don’t know if I succeeded, or if I ever made it, as it were, but I didn’t quit.
When I was in college, I ruined a relationship with a woman I was head over heels smitten with because I was scared of letting go of a summer fling that felt like love. In another life, I threw myself wholly into the new relationship, and we had more time. Maybe we broke up eventually. Maybe we didn’t.
In another life, I’ve become a therapist. In another, I am still with my first long-term boyfriend, my first love. In a third, I am a rabbi. In a fourth, I am already a parent. In a fifth, I figure out a way to live in London. In a sixth, my father is still alive. In a seventh, I never left New York City. And on, and on, and on.
I will never live these other lives, and some days, that breaks my heart. Some days, I grieve the loss of what ended, the loss of what never was or never will be. Many days, I chastise myself for this grief: The past is the past, my mean inner voice says, and Count your blessings! and Don’t be so ungrateful, look at all you do have!
I am trying to be kinder to myself. And in those moments of kindness, I remember that I am a writer, a storyteller, and that my ability to imagine all these other lives, to see the paths that weren’t, aren’t, never will be, is a gift. What if I embraced that gift? What if, instead of regret over the weren’ts, aren’ts, never-will-bes, I allowed myself to revel in fantasy, in my ability to imagine these possibilities?
What if, in other words, I allowed myself to see the imagined lives unlived as part and parcel of a life well lived?
