The Lives I'm Not Living

 A very wise man* once wrote a book, and in that book there is a line that consists of these words: "Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living."

Which makes me wonder about all the lives that I'm not living. Science tells us that there are infinite universes, with infinite possibilities such that in some green skied world, a Wesley very much like myself is typing at the kitchen table of his mother's home wondering about the lives he too isn't living. A similar Wesley types in a world with an orange sky, and another in a world overrun with Okapis, and another in a world that rejected footwear. A plump Wesley types in a world where the United States split during their Civil War, and a blonde haired Wesley lives in a world where the bombing of Guernica never happened, and Picasso's masterpiece never came to be. In an even greater infinity of worlds, Wesley never comes to fruition at all. His great grandpa didn't leave his prosperous bakery in Southern Germany and instead ended up fighting on the Nazi side in World War II, where he died and his son and granddaughter, my mother, were never born. In another universe, Wesley becomes the leader of a cultish group who oppose bathing.

 In another world, Eve refused the fruit, and all of humanity remains hidden inside of her. 

But these Wesleys don't tug on my insides like some of the other Wesleys do. Not like the very similar Wesleys who handle things better, who don't lie awake sometimes wondering what they could have done to circumvent pain and sorrow. The Wesleys who are selfless and noble and better. When I think about them my bones feel heavy under the weight of the life that I'm now living.  

But another thought comes. Let's use a simple example: If Wesley had whined less as a child, and been a better Wesley, his father might have believed him sooner when six-year-old Wesley broke his leg skiing once. But how would non-whiny six-year old Wesley have learned the consequences of being a whiny four and five-year-old without, say, breaking his leg? How would Great-Grandpa Niederlein have learned to trust his instincts if he had never left his bakery in Southern Germany? How would Eve have learned the joys of motherhood had she kept all those babies inside of her? 

Like her, we eat and are crushed, but only so we can learn to lift the weight placed upon our backs. 

*Jonathan Safron Foer, in his Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close