Life in this alternate universe

Image credit ChatGPT

It’s been about a decade or so since I stopped writing regularly here for Headstuffing. 

Life just changed. 

A lot. Holy cow did it change. To the point where it seemed to be a parody of itself. 

Yeah, that’s about the time that Donald Trump came along and won the 2016 election for U.S. President.

And that’s about the time we all collectively fell into this black hole and went spinning on through the worm hole and were spit out into this alternate universe.

Then we had the pandemic. The pandemic that terrified us all into insisting it was true to the point where now we all question just what really happened there? 

A quick note – I have enough friends that got critically ill – close to death – so please don’t think I mean it wasn’t real – but we do have to wonder how the hell it came to be that the whole world agreed to shut down. 

And it did shut down. 

And then it opened back up – but different. You experienced it as well. And I bet for each of us it was very different in very different ways – with vague commonalities – like working from home and finding old masks in winter jackets – and not being able to toss out that left over COVID test kit in the back of your bathroom cupboard under the sink. 

When we did start going back to work in our physical office workplaces – I found myself asking those I hadn’t seen for the last year – much in the same way I would ask “how was your vacation?” or “Did you have a nice weekend?” – I would ask “So .,. how was your pandemic?” 

 Some would tell me about how incredibly stressed they were … others how bored … and others would tell me about the loved ones they lost … and yes … we lost a couple of our work colleagues as well. 

And I would feel like a jerk … because when they would ask me, I would reply along the lines of … “Frigging great, I loved it! After my wife left me and that horrid relationship was finally over and me and my daughters started figuring out how we were moving ahead I met the most incredible wonderful woman – and we joined forces and went through the most wonderful global lock-down together!”

And we did. And that wonderful woman is now my wife. And the pandemic gave us the most unique opportunity to really get to know each other.

I guess that while this alternate universe – now a decade later – doesn’t seem to be very kind to our geo-political or economic wellbeing, it has in fact been a very wonderful decade for me and Jac. But right now at this moment – this week after Easter 2026, this week after the successful landing of the Artimus 2 space mission – this month after the U.S. attacks on Iran are spiraling out of control, our alternate universe seems to be heading to an apocalyptic event that none of us could have imagined having survived the cold-war with the USSR and Russia’s attention is focused on Ukraine – and China seems to be sitting by quietly ready to take advantage of whatever opportunity such calamity could leave behind in it’s wake.

They say that each decision we make – each time were a choice exists – where more than one path is presented to each of us – that there is an alternate universe for each path or choice or decision we didn’t make or take.

I wonder which opportunity it was that brought me down this one.

Even if I knew, and even if I had that opportunity over again, I’ll tell you this quite sincerely – I wouldn’t change a thing.