It can happen in a second

A woman sat immobile on her front stoop the crisp cool air biting at her face. She couldn’t make a decision. She kept picturing her life as it would be, depending on which of a million variant decisions she could make.

The idea that life could take only one of two roads
“If I had said yes verse if I had said no”,
would make her laugh a sarcastic laugh inside her own mind.

She felt overwhelmed with possibility and hated the idea of closing herself off to one of those possible lives completely. She knew it came across as extremely indecisive and reeked of the privilege she was so thankful for having but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t help but sit on this stoop day after day and contemplate her life, planning the possibilities but taking no extreme action for the fear of missing out on something else.

She’d gotten too used to her comfortable life with her stable job and her stable relationship. She would be crazy to give up a life that everyone kept telling her she was lucky to have… but. There always seemed to be a ‘but’. But she was bored. But she was unhappy. But she wanted more. But what did she want? You only live once, she would think to herself. I can’t waste it!

And so she waited, for a lightbulb to go off or for a decision to happen to her. She sat feeling as the seconds passed by while she dreamed of the many possible different lives she could be living waiting for the second to come that she would decide on one and go for it.