i just finished a monster double shift and honestly i'm so wiped i can barely string a thought together but here i am, scrolling this dumb forum, because i guess it's better than staring at the ceiling for another hour. it’s not a big deal but sometimes i look at my hands after scrubbing them for the hundredth time today, after dealing with screaming kids and worried parents and endless paperwork, and i just wonder what they’d be doing if i'd just… taken a different turn. like, if i’d stuck with culinary school. my husband, he's such a good baker, always has been, and we used to talk about opening a little place, you know? him doing the breads and pastries, me making the fancy desserts, maybe some quiches or something. it was always just a dream, a silly thing we’d laugh about, but sometimes, like right now, at 2 am after seeing a kid with a fever for the eighth time, it doesn't feel so silly. i mean, i love my job, i really do. seeing those little faces, making them feel better, it's incredibly rewarding. but there's a part of me, a tiny, whispery part, that wonders if i would have been... happier? not more successful, necessarily, just… happier, in a different way. a less exhausting way. smelling warm bread every morning instead of antiseptic. covered in flour instead of god knows what else. it’s stupid, i know. it’s a good life, a privileged life. i don't regret it, not really. but the thought still creeps in sometimes, usually when i'm utterly spent, like a little ghost of a life i almost lived. my husband’s still baking, of course, just for fun now, for friends and family. sometimes he makes those croissants we talked about, flaky and buttery, and i just watch him, kneading the dough, his hands all dusted white, and i just… ugh. it's not a midlife crisis, i'm way past that. it’s just… a thought. a persistent, annoying thought that keeps me up when i should be sleeping. like, how much of our lives are just… a coin toss, really? a decision made when we were too young to even know what we were really deciding.