Because nothing worthwhile ever happened to me on the 11th.

[sorcyress]

Seriously. Not even the BtW files are providing anything interesting. So, I guess I'll actually have to come up with new content for this journal, rather than reflecting on the old stuff. Man, that's so lame! (*grin*)

So, what's on my mind right now!

Well, remember how I mentioned at the end of my last post that I would love to have a nice chat with the me who took the other path? As I wandered over to Magus's last night, I wound up having a speculative version of that chat, which, with the knowledge of what her life was like, later led to me and Magus having a fascinating discussion about alternate universe selves.

This was started by me going "Huh. You're kinda the lynchpin for a substantial amount of my life right now, aren't you?"

I'm pretty sure this is very true --one fragile little event, and we never remet, or things changed and rearranged in such a way that we never became close friends or partners. And my entire world changes --sans Magus, it's MUCH less likely I'll have managed to get as thoroughly into the dance I do (though I might more regularly do swing and contra) and while I'd certainly still be a gamer, I'd probably get to do less gaming. (Maybe --I would presumably still meet Dan4th, but I'm unsure I'd have the motivation to go to the strange internet man's house without someone else to watch my back occasionally)

More noticeably, without the dancing, I'd be out two *very* close friendships, and a handful of growing ones --I simply would've never met the SCD crowd. Swarthmore would no longer be able to be called the official school of making my life complicated since 2008. ;D

I've begun to sortof rough out some other lynchpins and ripplepoints¹ of my life, mostly by analyzing what sort of different relationships I would have with the world and the people in it.

Forget the big crucial events in my life --what were the silly little things that fundementally changed me, for better or for worse? November 21st, 2007? March 24th, August 7th, 2006?² And what were the things I can't even recognize that changed who I am? What made me stop trusting? What made me realize I like girls; that I'm poly?

What would my life be like without Veronica? (Indeed, would I have a life? Her and Kat have saved me a dozen times and more from ever thinking about suicide in anything but the most speculative of terms.) What would my life be like if my parents had stopped at two children, or one. Or if I grew up in my city, instead of Columbia?

The tiniest events at the time can make the biggest ripples in the end. This cute blonde chick saying hi at a girl scout thing, almost without reason, led to my wonderful friendship with Aren, and arguably, because of who wound up hanging out with who, with Blue. Two unthrown birthday parties are responsible for the best friendship I've ever had³. An invented name leads to my broken heart.⁴

A perfect synchronous double take changes the rest of my life.⁵

A business trip to Seattle in 1999, leads to me joining a web forum in 2003, leads me to running past the do not enter sign in the airport to hug the woman who means almost more to me than life itself in 2007⁶. What if I had never joined Sluggy? What if she had never sent that first IM?

And yes. I fear this entry is getting weird and rambly and boring. It's your turn to be weird and rambly! Tell me some of your lynchpins, some of your alternate timelines.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Oh, just go play Chrononauts. It's my favourite Looney Labs card game, and it's full of Time Travel, okay? It's pretty rad.

2: Okay, just because I've been making an effort to be less cryptic in here doesn't mean I'm going to let you see everything there is to know. Both those dates, things happened. That's all.

3: That being said, some things are plenty allowed to be public. Veronica and I became best friends because my mom and her dad were friends in high school, our birthdays were three days apart, and neither of us had gotten a birthday party that year. Seriously.

4: Sometimes I will still call Chris Momo.

5: If I could get video footage of any one moment in my life, I would honestly probably choose this just because it was so movie perfect. I was wandering, our eyes met, I passed him, confused, we turned at the exact same time to go "OH, it's YOU!"

6: We were given the first Sluggy Freelance book on that trip. The rest, as they say, is history.

Comments

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

Interesting idea, and one I've thought about occasionally myself. Of particular note for me, I think, is Nathen, as I told him at like 430am or something as we were driving home from Rothbury last year (because 430am in pitch-darkness on the road is exactly the right time and place for both thinking about and sharing this sort of thought), the ripplepoint being that one summer day he took me to a random impromptu get-together/baseball game thing he'd also invited your mom to. In addition to years' worth of events prior to that, of course, but that one in particular.

That's really the only one I can think of (well, except for one other, again with the not-out-here). I'm sure there are more somewhere. Hmm.