Hindsight

Søren Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.”

I often wonder if I had gone to a psychic before I married Paul and she had said, “Honey, I see heartache ahead for you,” would I have listened?

“I see you destroying yourself over a man,” the psychic would say.

“What exactly does this man look like?” I would ask.

“He’s wearing a white lab coat.  I believe he’s a doctor.”

“That has got to be Paul.”

“Don’t marry this Paul.  He’s all wrong for you!”

“Wrong for me?  He’s a doctor.  Doesn’t every girl want to marry a doctor?

“Your mother wanted you to marry a doctor.  When you were eleven years old she told you that it’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man.”

How did she know what my mother told me when I was eleven years old?

“Your mother was drunk when she told you that.”

How did she know my mother was an alcoholic for many years?

“I’m a psychic.  I see everything.”

“What else do you see?”

“I see you with your head stuck in the refrigerator looking for something to eat, all because this Paul withholds sex and intimacy from you.  I see you drowning your sorrow in an egg salad sandwich piled high with mayonnaise and a bag of potato chips.”

How did she know what my favorite binge foods were?

“I see you stuffing that egg salad sandwich into your mouth to numb your feelings.  What a shame.  You’re such a beautiful girl.  You weigh one hundred and twenty-five pounds.  I have to close my eyes.  I cannot bear to watch you destroy yourself.”

The psychic closes her eyes only to open them again in horror.  She lets out an earth-shattering scream.

“What is it?” I ask alarmed.

“I see you blowing up like a balloon right before my very eyes!”

“I’m blowing up like a balloon?  How fat am I?”

“Two hundred and seventy-five pounds!”

“That can’t be possible.”

“It is possible!  I’m a psychic.  I can see into the future.  You marry this Paul and twenty years into your marriage you’re going to end up being the size of a football lineman!”

“Oh, please, me the size of a football lineman — it will never happen,” I say.

I’ve always thought psychics were full of a lot of hogwash.

The psychic laughs.  “So you think I’m full of a lot of hogwash?”

“You can read my thoughts?”

“Yes, I can read thoughts.  But since you don’t believe in me and you think I’m full of a lot of hogwash go ahead and marry this Paul.  You’ll learn the hard way that I was right.”

If I had really gone to a psychic before I married Paul and she forewarned me that if I married Paul I would end up putting on 150 pounds in my unhappy marriage would I have listened?  Tell me, dear reader, would you have listened?