admiral_adama (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
admiral_adama) wrote2007-06-01 02:23 am
admiral_adama) wrote2007-06-01 02:23 am
180. A Life to Re-Live
If you could completely start your life over from scratch, what would you do differently the second time around (if anything)? Why?
I've said it before; I'll say it again. I'm not here to navel-gaze.
Mistakes and wrong choices ... fix them if you can, learn from them regardless, but wishing you could go back and change them is pointless. All our lives are woven of both our actions and the actions of others. Pull on enough threads, the tapestry unravels. But even reweaving from the beginning may not get you the picture you want.
Of course there are things in my life I should have done differently, looked at individually. Sixty-four years has been more than enough time to accumulate my share of mistakes and regrets. But even if I had the opportunity, if someone handed me the magic to relive my life and change anything I wanted, what changes could I make that wouldn't end in potential disaster?
Keeping the peace with my parents by not joining the military would have led to someone else commanding Galactica during the Cylon attack on the Colonies. The same would have happened if I'd stayed with Carolanne, settled planetside like she wanted me to, and there would still be no guarantees of her happiness. Staying closer to my boys, maybe fighting for custody ... that, that I very nearly would choose. But even leaving aside the effect on my own career, how would that have affected their choices? Would I have lost both my sons when the nukes started falling, instead of having Lee safe?
If I could somehow make choices that would have prevented the Cylons' return and those billions of deaths, that would be worth any loss of mine. As Laura so eloquently pointed out to me, however, no one thing and no one person brought about that disaster. I couldn't unravel enough to change that outcome.
And all the major pivot points since then ... as unpredictable as the original outcomes were, I'd hate to think what I'd wind up with if I messed with any of them.
No, the only change I could legitimately make would be something much smaller. Pull on just one single thread, important only to me ... and maybe one other person.
Like a certain night on New Caprica.
I can think of a few things to change there ....
Muse: Admiral William Adama
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica '03
Word count: 372
I've said it before; I'll say it again. I'm not here to navel-gaze.
Mistakes and wrong choices ... fix them if you can, learn from them regardless, but wishing you could go back and change them is pointless. All our lives are woven of both our actions and the actions of others. Pull on enough threads, the tapestry unravels. But even reweaving from the beginning may not get you the picture you want.
Of course there are things in my life I should have done differently, looked at individually. Sixty-four years has been more than enough time to accumulate my share of mistakes and regrets. But even if I had the opportunity, if someone handed me the magic to relive my life and change anything I wanted, what changes could I make that wouldn't end in potential disaster?
Keeping the peace with my parents by not joining the military would have led to someone else commanding Galactica during the Cylon attack on the Colonies. The same would have happened if I'd stayed with Carolanne, settled planetside like she wanted me to, and there would still be no guarantees of her happiness. Staying closer to my boys, maybe fighting for custody ... that, that I very nearly would choose. But even leaving aside the effect on my own career, how would that have affected their choices? Would I have lost both my sons when the nukes started falling, instead of having Lee safe?
If I could somehow make choices that would have prevented the Cylons' return and those billions of deaths, that would be worth any loss of mine. As Laura so eloquently pointed out to me, however, no one thing and no one person brought about that disaster. I couldn't unravel enough to change that outcome.
And all the major pivot points since then ... as unpredictable as the original outcomes were, I'd hate to think what I'd wind up with if I messed with any of them.
No, the only change I could legitimately make would be something much smaller. Pull on just one single thread, important only to me ... and maybe one other person.
Like a certain night on New Caprica.
I can think of a few things to change there ....
Muse: Admiral William Adama
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica '03
Word count: 372