What If

On today, the day of love, I can't help but think about how I got to this day. Ten years, one month, and fourteen days of being with my special someone. What if: dot-dot-dot?

What if... certain things hadn't lined up the way they did to bring me where I am today?

What if... a friend of mine hadn't asked me to come with him to the UW Filipino dance troupe back in 1993?

What if... I had decided not to join 'cause I wasn't Filipino?

What if... I hadn't stuck it out and danced and met that girl who, at the time, I wouldn't have one romantic thought of?

What if... I hadn't dated someone else from that dance group but, on a side note, became good friends with her friend?

What if... even though I broke up with this other girl, I hadn't started hanging out with this friend, who's a girl, just as a friend with many other friends (always in a group setting)?

What if... starting in 1998, I hadn't listened to my roommate and didn't start hanging out more & more with this female friend and her other female friend?

What if... I had decided that, nah, we didn't need to hang with this girl?

What if... there hadn't been an open temp position at my company?

What if... my female friend hadn't recently been laid off from her job?

What if... I hadn't asked this friend if she wanted to work with me?

What if... because she didn't work with me, I never had a chance to get to know her even better than I had ever known her before?

What if... we never went out for coffee breaks and lunches and walked to the bus together and became closer than we had ever been before?

What if... I didn't take that leap, to want to be more than just friends, and to see how we could be in a relationship?

What if... she didn't have faith in me and didn't trust in me and never took that chance?

What if... none of this ever happened?

Well, the answer is, I would never have known happiness the way I know it today.

Happy Valentine's Day to my one and only...