Other Lives

Not too long ago, I received an e-mail inviting me to join something called “LinkedIn.” For those of you who have never heard of it, it’s kind of like Facebook or Friendster or one of those other types of online networking communities I have done my best to avoid over the years, only LinkedIn is for professional connections—a way to expand business contacts, recommend services, and perhaps even find employment. You can connect with people who work in your same field, who graduated from your college or university, and so on and so forth. I was “invited” by a client for whom I had done some copywriting in the past, and I clicked on the link, filled out a basic profile, and proceeded not to think anything more about it unless someone else from the site invited me to be one of their connections. Many people on the site have 70, 80 or even well over 100 connections. I have four. That gives you an idea of the kind of use I get out of it.

In fact, while others are utilizing this site to expand their professional horizons and market themselves to the masses, my one use—if you can even call it that—was to springboard off of it into an existential crisis. This came about when I received a message (via the site) from a former Wellesley friend. Wellesley has a long tradition of connecting upperclasswomen to incoming first years, and N, as I’ll refer to her, was my “little sister.” Many times these connections don’t last for long, but N and I were faithful in adhering to the traditions of Flower Sunday, hoop-rolling, and the periodic lunch together. We also saw each other frequently in the music department, which was her major and my almost minor and place of employment during my four college years. I lost touch with her in the years after my graduation, and perusing her page in the present, I was pleased and excited to see that she had not only gotten her Ph.D in music after all (something her parents were strongly opposed to when we were still in college), but that she is now a professor of music at a university.

While on her page, I noticed that—unlike me—N had a large number of connections, so I clicked on that link to see what other old Wellesley acquaintances I might come across. There turned out to be quite a few, and after my initial gladness at seeing all the familiar names and the interest of finding out what they were all up to these days, I began to notice something—namely, that one after the other had a Ph.D and were also professors, or maybe they had an M.F.A. and were writers in residence at some university or other, or were professional musicians, or had research fellowships or held some such other position that reeked of prestige. It was like reading an extended version of our alumnae magazine, only I personally knew (or had known) all of the people detailed on the page. I had been in class with these women at one point. I had taken exams with them, agonized over papers, critiqued their manuscripts, and received their critiques of my own. I had eaten meals with them and played Pictionary with them during slow shifts in the music library. They had all seemed just like me, and yet now, laid out in an online profile, they all seemed so much better than me, so much more accomplished. They had gone on to attain the highest levels of education at top universities, won prestigious awards, and were now professors and writers and musicians. They weren’t wannabes but the real things—the things we had all dreamed about and talked about and stewed in the potential of when we were in college.

And, so, the existential crisis. That mean and insidious voice that murmurs, “and what have you done with your life?” Reason kicks in, of course, and another voice pipes up to say that I have done just fine with my life, thank you very much. That I may not have gone to an Ivy League for graduate school, but I was able to pay the tuition to the state university where I got my M.A. in full and learned a great deal while I was at it. That I have a secure job with a good salary and benefits. That I am doing something meaningful on a daily basis, influencing and helping to shape the lives and educations of hundreds of students. That in moving back to California I was able to be close to my mother and help take care of her when she was sick and dying. And on and on. But I think underlying all those statements of affirmation about the choices I’ve made and the things I’ve done is the shadow of all the things I chose against and all the things I haven’t done, and moments like this can make that shadow loom large.

What if I hadn’t moved back home after college? What if I had gone to a big-name university for graduate school? What if I had been more ambitious and less fearful and pushed myself harder? And on the other end of things, being single and childless in my mid-30s, there are always those other questions that are all some form of “what if I’d done things differently?” and worse—“should I have done things differently?” I think we all have those questions from time to time in some form or other. Some of my “successful” classmates probably do. The same probably goes for some of my happily married with beautiful children friends. The particular types of questions and the degree of doubt may vary, and for some the positives of their current lives outweigh the uncertainty of those shadowy other lives. But they are still there—all those other lives we could have lived.

Part of me feels guilty for indulging in such pointless wonderings. So many people in this world have no choice in their lives. They are born, they live, and they die constrained by poverty or violence or some other form of oppression and enslavement. So I recognize that such existential angst is quite a luxury. Having all these choices and options is an almost embarrassing bounty of blessings. But recognizing that doesn’t make the struggle and doubt go away any more than knowing about children starving in Africa made my reluctance to eat vegetables go away when I was a little girl.

When you’re young it’s a wonderful thing to dream about all the possible lives you could have—all the things you can do and be and experience. It all seems possible and even plausible. At this time of year, when I look at my seniors who are on the verge of graduating, who are on the cusp of their adult lives, shining with promise and potential, I always feel a piercing sense of nostalgia. I remember being in that position myself so clearly. I remember feeling such a strong sense of something coming, something wonderful that was just around the corner (what could it be?). And, fortunately, while that anticipation and excitement hasn’t resulted in my being shot by someone named Chino (all of that being a reference to Tony’s beginning song and ultimate fate in West Side Story, in case you’re wondering), it has resulted in these periods of uneasiness and doubt, and even the occasional sense of letdown. Is this as good as it gets? Is there another life I could have chosen that would have been better? Is there something else I should be choosing now?

I am not ungrateful for the life I have. I understand and accept why I made many of the choices I’ve made and the direction they’ve taken me, and on a lot of days—maybe even most—I really like my life. It’s a good life. But I think there will always be some sense of those other lives rising up to haunt me from time to time, and as long as I have choices and dream of possibilities (though those seem to get narrower with each passing year), I don’t know how to make them go away. The one, it seems, comes with the other.