What If?

By Joel Elveson

“Why do we never get an answer when we’re knocking at the door?”

–Question ~The Moody Blues

What if I had led you? Where would you be now? What would your life be like? Were the decisions that I as your “leader” made have enough substance to them? Did I touch you or reach into your inner soul so as to have empowered you to be able to lift yourself skyward and beyond? When you dared to dream did you follow a rainbow to realize your dream? What if I had led you? Questions with more questions that are begging to be asked that only have answers that leave for you more questions.

What if I had led you? How did it come to be that I was led to live a life that led me to you so you could be led by me? Did we feed off of one another or were you led as I was led to simply specify, clarify, identify, and magnify just so there could be a conclusion to the chaos created by the bombardment of questions? “Why Do We Never Get An Answer When We’re Knocking At The Door?” Had I not led you would you have left me behind with not so much as a glance or perhaps even standing still menacing stony stare?

What if I had led you? What if I had led you in the nighttime? What if I had led you in the daytime in the merriment of it all? Would the career mudslide that smothered your every move still have come to pass or came to be if I had been leading you? Who is to say my leadership would have been or would not have been a colossal failure or unrivaled success? What is the path I took you down as I was leading you that proved to make all the difference in your world for you to savior?

What if you had led me? What mountains could you have gotten me to climb be they physical or mental? What if you had led me? Did you manage to cast aside all of my fears and inhibitions? My heart was put out there for you to mend, shape, or break so that my mind would approve or disapprove of this transaction as I hoped it would? Was my heart strong enough to take on and ultimately win all those battles that I may or may not have had to win or even fight at all?

What if you had led me? Just what was it that you saw from me that made you feel you could be at one with me? Could we both be as one with interconnected souls that are alive with fire and desire? When I as I often did or do sink into the depths of despair devoid of hope how did you arrive at the place you knew I needed for you to be in order that you might save me? If you had led me would you have come to know which side of me I was on at the time?

What if we had met and decided to consummate a relationship? What if when we met you were a leader at some company and I wound up joining the fray? What would become of the relationship that was just starting to bloom? Does one of us then have to relocate so we do not wind up paddling upstream with the currents thrashing us backward in our own little small boats? What if you and I were not led to the same place? Would you then be led to learn that you loved me? Would I then be led to learn that I not only loved you but needed you as well? Would we then be led back to a place where we both can clinch each other once again? What if out of this love we are now sharing life with one who was born onto us that we now see as our blessing? Who can we approach to take care of our blessing to nurture and raise him should we suddenly pass away before it is too soon for him to be able to find his own way?

What if not by leading or if not in leadership you should grow to discover one fine day the only truths you ever knew were those truths communicated to you not necessarily through spoken words but from sounds originating from the vocal cords of the gentle non-human creatures we cohabitate with on this planet called earth? What if not by chance but of a divine plan the creatures whom we had to have known as being named as such were heretofore now known as animals that soon would become our sisters and brothers? What if we forsake the lives of our brethren just to be able to hang their heads on a mantle for all to realize you had killed and would kill again? Were you led to believe the sound of a shotgun blast that you called for pierced through the beating heart of an animal that bore no malice towards you signaled the loss of life of a family member possibly leaving an infant to fend for him or herself was a manly man thing to do? From what were you led to believe you had concurred with others who were killers of the helpless just as you are that gave you a sense of accomplishment or a sick tainted victory? What if I were leading I into a known metaphor when a stoppage of the master clock of time and space whereupon I was then appointed to eradicate the I in me so the now known as we can ever so apprehensively approach a brightly burning flame that is now beckoning us to come inside so our form would morph into something we could have never expected us to be? Was it that we were led to be if not what we once were but for what we can become? Now is a something no one person owns alone but we are allowed to see the flame that is only now flickering on wicks? Lead on! Lead on!

Is a magical moment when two sets of lips are led to paste together being now called love? What if this love turns out to be the only one you need for the rest of your life? What if this love of yours that binds us both together evokes seemingly long since forgotten romantic memories that you thought were buried inside you from past loves who still occupy a permanent place so ingrained in your mind that you cannot shake them free to then allow yourself to focus on what is in the here and now where you must make your move to commit to? Be led to skate away from your past. What if you long to go back in time to reunite with that someone you thought you would never leave but did? What if you could be put in front of a mirror whereupon you clearly see the past standing side by side with the present? What if you can never go back in the direction that led you astray, to begin with?

In the final analysis, as I yearn to begin to conclude that which I have known already on the open-ended question of what if is one that an incorrect answer does not now exist. Every answer must be led back to the question that was posed to see the context where the question was extracted from so as to be able to ensure each part of this equation matches up to its other.

What if I had not rhetorically presented the plethora of questions that were asked of you? Could you see yourself allowing your mind to acquiesce to your heart to know the questions that lurk in the shadow of each question create the formula for thought? The case of this what if a story was there a piece, a word, or a sentence that piqued your curiosity if not the creation of the mindset of the need to know in addition?

What if while we were Waiting For Godot ( a very fine play written by Samuel Beckett in 1952) we here now in the 21st century abruptly come to a stop and begin to wonder what are or what is it that which we are waiting for? From above where all things that are possible reside under watchful eyes the answer that reigns down from up above where the sweet rain emanates is as we said before are waiting for Godot. Of this question we had asked swiftly came back with the only answer there could ever be. Yet we are led to ponder are their other questions that beg for an exclusive answer such as the one that was just given? Are these exclusive answers too elusive to be matched up with a pattern of thought?

What if we did not know that all that G-d does for us is for our best? What if we came to doubt all that we once held or thought to be true? What if our worst fears that are our biggest nightmares somehow became a horrible reality? What if this sudden onslaught of a horrible reality seems primed to become a destiny we would rather not see? What if we believed in miracles to the point where one came true just in time to dissipate the horror of anxiety-producing nightmares at which time we can exhale the bad while we inhale the good?

What if I just now instantly needed you just as somebody else now needed for you to be their leader? What if your leadership of that person suddenly made him great while opening new doors for you to be the leader of a whole new group of people? What if your new-found superstardom left me to be alone time and time again? What if I told you “it” has all gotten to me to the point where I do think I should now take my leave from life? What if my desire not to continue on weakened the steps on your ladder but not to the point where you would fall? What if you were able to solidify me while making me feel whole again that suddenly opened other new and better doors than what was opened before you had to take me on?

What if we had never socially met but for eight hours per day with a five day work week where we battled, competed, and ultimately formed us into two leaders with each of us taking on different aspects of running the team which was our team? What if I was easier on my talented pupil who was raw and easily thrown from her horse while you were using the technique of tough love on your nervous, overly sensitive pupil who also wore the cloak of insecurity? What if in the end, it all came tumbling down all the while crumbling beneath our feet?

What if we were climbing to the top of the narrow winding marble stairs when we came to realize this was our special place? What if it were as if this was the destiny that had been laid out for us a long time ago? What if our elegant empty clothes were waiting for that precise moment to jump on our backs removing our nakedness? What if those clothes while being the epitome of elegance did not fit the personas of the persons who were wearing them? What if once the garments of greed were removed would our nakedness be re-revealed?

What if it is the time (it is) for me to start working on writing my final goodbye for now? What if I had not been lucky enough to have you ride by my side as these questions began to unfurl? On the beginning of the ending of the what if’s we finally put this worn down noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, etc. driven display of verbosity on a shelf in the library of the not quite who’s who for someone to take to bed and curl up with as they succumb to the call of sleep?

May we all be granted the opportunity to have another precious period for which we will all give thanks to you our creator for giving us yet another new day? Let us all endeavor to make this G-d given new day one where the stars in the sky write out our names as perhaps belonging to a part of a permanent remembrance of who or what we once were.