There was a full moon on Thursday August 22 in the sign of Aquarius, my sun sign. My favorite astrologer wrote, on her website, that this Aquarius moon will be about looking at the past rather than the future. This may explanation why I have been on a major nostalgia trip since Thursday.

The movie Sliding Doors is about how a seemingly random event changes the course of one person's life. In one life, the main character catches her subway train. In the second parallel life, the main character misses the train. The simple act of either catching or missing the train lead the main character two completely different futures.

In one of my favorite episodes of Red Dwarf, that hilarious Brit scifi show, Rimmer the hologram meets one of his selves. What' s interesting is the new Rimmer is the polar opposite of the hologram Rimmer. The new Rimmer says that every decision you make in life, creates another reality, a whole other you living a completely different future, in a different dimension. all stemming from the outcome of that one decision.

As look back on my past, as I have been doing these past few days, I saw three possible lives for me since 1999.

Life # 1 - Instead of freaking out and running away from the guy who is "the one that got away", I didn't freak out and I stayed. In that life, we followed the normal course of romance, got married and I'm a house wife on the Peninsula raising my one year old little boy. I am in love, but it's a comfortable and companionable love, which makes me feel very secure. Sometimes I have visions of him, this son that I know is alive and well in another dimension. He looks like his father with his strawberry blonde hair and hazel green brown eyes. I would have stopped writing, so there would be no writing group, no screenwriting group, no novel started, no short stories written, no screenplay, and definitely no blog. I think I am happy in that other life, because I have the child I always wanted, but I think a part of me is sad because the writing got left behind. I try to write, but with a husband and child to care for, writing is the last thing on my mind. I'm a mommy now. I have a comfortable, luxurious and secure life. My husband is a bit of workaholic, and travels two weeks out of every month. When he's not traveling, he's playing golf. He is kind and he loves me, but he's a little boring. His job always comes first, but he is a good provider and good father to my child, when he's there.

Life # 2 - Instead of being cautious and safe, I threw caution to the wind and moved to Texas to be with "the one I let go". I had a vision of myself living somewhere in some small town Texas. I am in love, and it is a wild, crazy and passionate love, which is exciting but stressful too. I saw myself happy, because I was with the man I loved, but I also sensed that I was lonely and sad. I left the city I loved, the ocean I need to feel comfortable and all of my friends. I am landlocked and living in a small town, which I swore I would never do again. I do not have a child, because the man I love doesn't want any more children, and this is a sore point between us. My husband is a workaholic, so I spend alot of time on my own. I write, because the man I love encourages me in my writing as he is a fellow writter himself when he's not working, but I feel like a fish out of water and there is no inspiration to write. I miss the ocean, I miss my friends, I miss city life, and most of all I miss the energy and creativity that comes from living in a place where breaking with tradition is a way of life. I love my husband, but he is a typical Texas guy and it's either his way or the highway, and he will not abide agreeing to disagree. It's too exhaustive to fight with him, so most of the time I give in. His early words of advise come back to haunt me. He told me, "Never move for love, only move for more money."

Life # 3 - My current life I lead. I am exploring my writing so I've written 7 short stories, started a novel and wrote 120 pages of it, finished a screenplay, am in a writing and screenwriting group, and I have a blog. I am happy 95% of the time and I still feel like I have all my options open and my whole future ahead of me. I am comfortable and secure, and I make enough money so I feel quite comfortable living in the most expensive city in the country.

While writing this I just got the following insight. The man who I dubbed, "the one that got away", would have preferred that I loved him in a wild and crazy way. The man who I dubbed, "the one I let go", would have preferred that the love I felt for him be comfortable, soothing and companionable. This may be why these two relationships never worked, and why there were subtle red flags from the get go both times. A politically inclined friend said that the two relationships would have also never worked, because well, they were both republicans and I'm a middle of the road democrat. I'm not sure I agree with him on this one, since deep down my values were similar to both men on the important things like family, money and religion.

I know I made the right decision in choosing life # 3, and that I was meant to make the choices I made. But, this aquarius moon has me wondering sometimes what life # 1 and life # 2 would have been like. I loved both men, although in very different ways, and it still hurts that I'm not with either of them. For "the one who I let go", I just miss him alot. He was a good friend too, a fellow writer, and I miss his discipline and his intelligence. For "the one that got away", I cannot help but look back at our time with more than a tinge of regret. I felt so comfortable with that man, so secure, and yes, I admit it, a little bored. But, what's a little boredom when you have an overabundance of security and love.

I cannot wait for this aquarius moon to end. I am tired of looking back into my past. I guess I want more confirmation that I did the right thing, that I made the right decision, that following my creative impulse was the best decision to make, is always the best decision to make, that a life without creativity is a half lived life, a sad life, that in the end it always works out for the best, it may not look like it at the time, but everything always works out for the best, all the time, like it was planned that way all along.