I started writing down the things that nearly occurred but didn’t—the job I didn’t take, the conversation I almost had, the trip I cancelled.
At first it felt morbid, like cataloguing failures. But the longer I keep the list, the more I see it as something else entirely. These aren’t failures. They’re the branching paths, the alternate versions of my life that existed for a moment and then dissolved.
There’s something comforting about acknowledging them. We talk so much about the choices we make, the paths we commit to. But we rarely talk about the ones we didn’t take, the ones that were real possibilities right up until they weren’t.
Last week I added “moving to Lisbon” to the list. A friend of a friend mentioned an apartment opening up, and for about four days I actually considered it. Imagined the light there, the language I’d have to learn, the version of myself who would live that life. Then the timing didn’t work out, and that version disappeared.
I’m not sad about it. But I wrote it down. Because it mattered, even if only briefly.