A normal and pretty girl, much like you and me (:P) if you happen to be a girl, made her choices of what men to date and what men to turn down as she went through life. In her early 30s, she finally settled on a nice, stable man and married him. They had a normal life, a nice house, a couple of kids, and every time someone asked her how life was, she shrugged and said “Fine.” Because it was.

One day, a magical woodland creature popped out of this girl’s morning smoothie, shook the frosty berry goo off her shimmering wings, and said, “Thanks for releasing me from this smoothie! I’ve been stuck here for awhile, I really shouldn’t have fallen asleep inside that banana. To thank you, I’m going to satisfy your curiosity. Was there any what-ifs you’d ever wondered about your life? Tell me one and I’ll show you the alternate reality of that what-if.”

The girl knew exactly what she wanted to see. There was a guy she’d considered dating before she’d met her husband, but had ultimately decided not to date him because at the time, it didn’t seem like they were on the same track. He was attractive and she was certainly attracted to him, they found each other to be fabulous company, but it just seemed like they wanted different things out of life. So looking at long-terms, she had reluctantly turned him down after getting to know him a little better. “I want to see what my life would’ve been like, if I had dated him,” she told the magical sprite.

With a wave and twist of a magical wand, shimmers appeared and faded as the girl saw herself years ago as if she were watching a high-definition plasma television screen. She watched herself laugh and play with the guy, watched them share serious and silly things with each other, attend sophisticated grande operas and jog through nature. It was the relationship she’d always wanted, and it was a relationship she didn’t have with her husband. And then, much as she’d been afraid would happen back when she made the difficult decision to not date this man, she watched the relationship end in the enchanted projection. He didn’t crush her heart, she didn’t cheat on him, they didn’t stop getting along. Their paths just diverged, much as she knew they would. Their ships had passed each other in the night after a relatively brief but perfect interlude. The girl watched herself then meet her husband, get married, and have the exact same kids she has now.

“You look sad,” the sprite observed with concern as the girl looked up from the fading projection and impatiently brushed a tear from her cheek. “Your life is in the same place now as it would’ve been if you had dated that other man. Is that not reason for relief?”

“Even so, I feel like I’ve lost something,” the girl sighed. “Even if there could never have been a future with him, I almost wish I hadn’t known of that perfect relationship.”

“Your people have a saying, that ’tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ At birth, you are given a string, and each of your experiences is a pearl or another precious stone to add onto that string. The totality of it is the valuable necklace you get to wear proudly as you age. All of your people’s necklaces are different, and they all uniquely identify you as who you are. But you look so sad that I can give you another alternate reality if you’d like. I can put you back to before you saw all of this, and you would have never known. Would you like me to take this pearl back?”

What would you do?

“OR…” the sprite interrupted with a glint in her eye, “OR…I can go farther back in the alternate reality and GIVE YOU that relationship with that other man. You know how it’ll end up, but you can experience it yourself. Would you like that pearl?”

Would you?