THE ROAD NOT TAKEN - A REFLECTION...

The actual tenement building in which I once lived - on the first floor
to the right of the speed limit sign.  Where's the blue plaque?

Do you ever wonder in what ways your life might have been different if one aspect of your past hadn't happened as it did?  For example, if your family hadn't moved from one neighbourhood to another and you hadn't had to switch schools as a result?  In what way would your existence have differed - the direction of your life altered - as a consequence of your personal history not unfolding as it had?

Think of the friends you'd never have met, the things you'd never have done, the loves you'd never have known - all as a result of your parents deciding to move to one area instead of another (or not moving at all)  - or perhaps even emigrating to another country.  Favourite TV programmes and fondly-remembered comics and toys from your youth would be strangers to you, and a foreign cultural and social backcloth to your life could well have turned you into a completely different person to the one you are today.

I remember, about 16 years back, having a short-lived 'romantic' encounter with a young lady I'd been introduced to through friends, and enjoying some of the delights of the West End of Glasgow with her in all its golden, Autumnal glory. Subsequently, when she returned to her own country, I fell into the habit of revisiting the area, and was surprised to eventually realise that it was the very neighbourhood in which I had once lived as a mere babe-in-arms back in the 1950s.

I had no memory of the place from that period, because we had flitted to a new town when I was not long out of nappies (diapers), but it caused me to wonder if my affinity with the locale was as a result of its association with the 'object of my affections', or a subconscious memory of being trundled about the streets in my pram or pushchair when I was a babby (love that word).

Sometimes, whilst partaking of a latte outside the OFFSHORE CAFE in Gibson Street (just around the corner and practically within sight of the very road in which I had once resided), I would ponder what it would be like if we'd never moved, and instead of having to catch a train back to my present house, I had merely to walk around that corner and enter the tenement building that had once been home to me, but of which I now had no conscious recollection.

My experiences, my memories, would all have been different - to such an extent that my life wouldn't be the life I'd known and which played such a part in influencing and shaping who I am today - it would be another life entirely.  Which is like saying it would be another's life entirely!  Because I wouldn't, in all likelihood, be the same person I am now.  Would I be better or worse though? That's something else I sometimes ponder, but there's no way of knowing, I suppose.

Trouble is, it's incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to imagine a life different to the one I grew up living.  I guess it'd be the same for most people.  Doesn't stop me wondering though.

Now tell me - am I the only person who ever ponders perplexities like these, or is there anyone else out there who thinks along similar lines?  Maybe you'd like to add your thoughts, theories, observations and speculations on the matter, so feel entirely free to do so in the comments section.