Greener grass

Have you ever seen that movie, Sliding Doors, with Gwyneth Paltrow? While it wasn’t a particularly good movie, the premise still sticks with me. Basically, the movie is her life playing out in two different ways starting from a scene where she catches her commuter train, and the same scene but where she misses that train. Although the alternate reality Gwyneths end up living completely different lives, in the end, both Gwyneths do still wind up making a culty gynecological misinformation company called Goop where they sell you Jade Eggs to put into your steamed vagina. I often picture myself in the same scenario as Gwyneth, sans the steamed Jade Egg, but at the train station. Only that train station is multiple moments in my life where I wonder if my life would be better or worse if I had made certain decisions. One of my most frequently imagined alternate realities involves me forcing my husband to move to Ontario for my job rather than staying in Montreal for his job. I particularly imagine that scenario every time I visit my BFF in the town I would likely have lived in, and stay in his beautiful Victorian mansion. I daydream about how I could have two Victorian mansions in Ontario for the price of one Montreal house. Or put in another way, how I can’t have a Victorian mansion in Montreal. But would I be a happy Gwyneth or a sad Gwyneth in that Victorian Mansion, I ask myself? Alas, I will never know. I will have to remain the Gwyneth that covets her BFF’s house and lives in a post-war terrazzoed triplex. I suppose there must be a slums Gwyneth out there somewhere daydreaming of access to steam, so I should stop my complaining already. Besides, terrazzo is back in style again, so my life is pretty much awesome.