I Wonder What Life Would Be Like if I Were ... Mrs. P?

Master P and I were not really together for that long, unless you’re thinking “in college years.” We dated for one year and four months. We were introduced by my roommate at the time and weren’t friends first (as he pointed out to me once when I wanted to “stay friends” after the relationship was over). We were in looooove. I wanted to lavaliere him and he expected to propose to me. (I was always a little upset that our timetable wouldn’t let that happen while I was still living in the sorority house so I could have a candlelight.)

Then I was dumped three days before my 21st birthday. I had started to develop a crush on someone else during the previous six weeks; I stupidly told him about it. Master P seemed surprisingly unaffected by my confession … until he broke up with me. I was devastated. We flirted with getting back together about a month after our breakup. Even then, I could recognize that what had broken should just stay broken. Thank goodness.

Because, little by little, I began to realize that maybe it wasn’t all so bad—maybe I would survive. Sorority sisters commented that I had changed quite a bit when I was w/Master P—he was (and I’m sure he still is) really devout, so he challenged me about lots of things: drinking to excess, accepting roles in departmental theatre productions as characters of questionable/low morals, being a member of a sorority, cursing, etc. And as a young, only slightly mature woman who adored being liked, I let his beliefs become mine. Still, we argued a lot after we hit the one-year mark, and I recognized once I was single again just how much of my freedoms and personal credos I had gotten back through the breakup.

So. What would my life be like if I’d never had that crush (or admitted it, at least) and we’d stayed a couple and gotten married like we both talked around? I’d be a Midwesterner, for starters, and probably a church secretary. I’d have a big family of in-laws and live a half-day’s drive from my parents. I might be a mother, and wouldn’t be involved in theatre beyond possibly casting the Nativity play every December. I’d be a cook and a housekeeper and a card-game-player. I think my closest friendships would be with different women: Master P didn’t necessarily approve of my inner circle my junior year, and he definitely didn’t approve of the crowd I ran with after I wasn’t his girlfriend anymore. I don’t think I was rebelling … I was just back to being me.

I wonder if I’d be miserable right now? Or just oblivious to how fun this life—my real, now life—would have been? I might have been fine, though, b/c who really knows to miss what she never had? But somehow, I hope that something would have been not-quite-right with my life as Mrs. P. This life is way better and I’d hate not to be living it!