I almost dwelt upon a stage like sapphire gilt in gold Nearly run, nearly flung limbs to valleys bluely cold Loved, would I had the time not been wrong this night
Going to jail for (accidentally) smuggling drugs from Berlin to Athens.
Moving to London.
Going to New York to work for a socialite (and friend of Donald Trump) who clung to my arm on a packed train one sweltering Italian summer.
Getting hit by a bus.
Becoming a Psychologist.
Q: What do the above have in common?
A: They almost happened.
The evening is cold and I find myself staring down the barrel of the rest of my life. I’m at one of those inevitable inflection points: my stable, comfy income has dried up and I face that which I’ve long been yearning for - the space to follow a ‘dream’.
And let me tell you, it’s goddamn terrifying
With this newfound fear freedom I’m reflecting on how I got here. More specifically, how I didn’t: the might-have-beens I turned away from and the could have beens pulled out from under me.
Considering what is, what could have been, and where to go now.
The word almost is an adverb and if you’re anything like me and managed to entirely miss grammar class, an adverb is a word that modifies (or describes) a word or expression or, for the purposes of this essay, an experience.
Almost has the Old English root, eallmæst, and is defined as nearly, roughly, or not quite. Synonyms include mostly, nearly, virtually, practically. It’s antonyms range from wholly, entirely, fully, completely.
We spend our lives being some kind of thing, some shape of matter in a place at a certain time. And the above would suggest reality is what we are completely while the almost contains much of us but not enough to be whole. Mostly all but not all.
But an almost is more than something that doesn’t happen. In many games, like darts or AFL, an almost is called a near miss; a special kind of failure in that it comes close to being successful but falls short.
Hitting the mark is reality, a near miss is an almost, and going wide is closer to the thing never happening at all.
In games of skill, a near miss provides feedback, letting the player know they were close, but in games of chance they don’t say anything at all. Nonetheless, gamblers use them - the almosts - as evidence, turning them into data to inform future moves. They kiss dice or return to the same place attempting to recreate the nearly.
One might wonder, then, if life is more a game of chance or one of skill. Ought we learn from almosts as if we could control them, or are they better left alone?
Like many things, I believe the answer is both. There are forces we cannot control AND ways we can learn to play with these more effectively, joyously. Almosts do shape us. Or in the very least have the capacity to.
What are my mostly alls, and how have they shaped me?
I reluctantly admit many come to mind, a significant subset being the 6 degrees I’ve enrolled in over 6 years. Over their course, I was almost..
a diplomat in Paris (BCommerce / BA Global Studies French Major, 2016)
a screenwriter (BA Media & Comms Major, 2016)
a coder (BDesign Digital Technologies major, 2017)
a PR girlie (BA Professional Communications, 2018)
a Psychologist (BA Psych major (finished this one!!) + MPP)
In pulling apart the almosts, I find different forms of might-have-beens that share a family but differ slightly in DNA. Leaving aside the things that would never happen (riding a unicorn, me becoming an Olympic athlete by age 22), I see them split in two categories:
1: things that never happened but almost did. In these instances, there is some degree of consideration, of effort and energy invested. For example, almost ordering a non-decaf and saving myself a wave of anxiety.
2: the things that did happen and did not continue. These cross over with endings and include relationships and career paths embarked on. They’re characterised by significant investment, a strong intention to follow through. These kinds of almosts hit a bit harder.
The former relate to life for but a moment, while the latter fill a not insignificant portion of it. I was only enrolled in digital technologies for a few weeks, so that had less impact than the years I spent studying media and communications (though I can’t say I gleaned much value from learning about radio in the 40s.. or perhaps it’s too early to make such a claim).
So, is it more impactful that I did not move to London, than that I did not move to Russia? Yes. I don’t feel a sting when someone says they’re drinking a soy latte in a Russian cafe. One is tied to who I am, the other is not. So almosts do change us. And if we agree they provide feedback, then I know a part of me is drawn to something about London, otherwise there would be no such sting.
This brings me to another concern: looking back at all these almosts, I can’t help but worry they ought to have been all-ins. A linear life career path would have been more pleasurable; a life in London more exciting. This is a corridor ending in disappointment down which thoughts like to lead. Yet there is room to productively reframe this pattern as a little stroll down memory lane; a pleasant promenade reflecting on the beauty of life with its many winding roads and infinite potentialities.
I truly believe we’re here to grow, expand, and push forward (with a lot of rest in between). What’s more, I’m hopeful (though yet certain) we each hold within a kind of north star directing effort and energy in a destined direction. If this the case we might find comfort in knowing the almosts were necessarily left behind to step into who we’re meant to be. Indeed, my mind has been acting in line with this notion, thinking and also bidding my lips to express that the almosts are better that way; the steps leading away from them were right and nourishing. I want to say and have been saying:
“..now is better. I wouldn’t be here if that hadn’t happened, if X hadn’t changed.”
But truthfully, I cannot know. Perhaps I have made a mistake. Should get another 9-5. Should have stuck to my initially chosen degree - I could have been 8 years into a career, for goodness sake, and may have met several lovers, travelled the world, been sipping riesling by a diamond-studded Italian lake each summer as my sweat glowed and gold dazzled about my neck dazzled, throwing its light on the amber liquid held by hand-blown glass dripping in sweet European condensation.
Perhaps I ought to have accepted the socialite’s invitation. We could have grown to be close friends and maybe she had no children, suffered a heart attack some years later and left a great fortune to me, a significant sum of which I’d donate to charity and in so doing make a real difference in the world.
Maybe it would have been a nice life if my relationship hadn’t ended. If I’d studied Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics.
If nothing else almosts are facts we must live with. We needn’t dwell but it is interesting to reflect. Anais Nin said “to write is to taste life twice”, and I think the same goes for thinking about almosts: if not useful, it is at least amusing to gaze back upon how we came to this moment. And if we can look curiously rather than regretfully we may well spy insights and use them to continue gracefully forward.
I’ve also been thinking about creativity lately and see parallels between ideas and almosts; the way they appear and then move forth. It’s said an idea presents itself to many people at once and if everything is just energy, which it might be, when an idea wants to be birthed it will land in the mindspaces of many. Indeed, Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat Pray Love) describes how a very specific idea for a novel she never ended up writing resurfaced several years later, published by a different author who could possibly not have lain eyes on Gilberts notes.
Rick Rubin speaks similarly of creation’s mechanisms, explaining how we are simply vessels through which art moves. In this way we actually have little control over our productions, a fact on the one hand a little weird and certainly disappointing to the ego, and on the other incredibly freeing since if it isn’t actually me doing it, why not just let it happen? It kinda provides a bypass for self-judgment and is therefore a useful tool for the old toolbelt in moments when you need to dodge the inner critic.
I digress. The energetics of an almost fascinate me. While procrastinating finishing this piece I landed on an essay that deals, too, with almosts through analysis of a passage from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. This suggests the consideration of almosts is something out in the ether. Maybe you’re thinking of them, too. Frustratingly, I learned that Plath summed it up quite nicely, and certainly more succinctly, than I:
The paragraph grants solace and underscores the greatness of literature. Humans are all just experiencing the same god darn things over and over. No one has it figured out, and if they do, I probably won’t like them as they’ll be necessarily lacking the level of amiable self-awareness that cannot exist without a little existential-almost-crisis.
If we think of the almosts of our lives like creative ideas surfacing and resurfacing, we can find relief in surrendering to the flow of things. Accepting that perhaps we’ve not all that much control. That things will continue to happen, to not happen, to always happen. And when it comes to wondering whether different might have been better, the answer is to trust there is no better. I proudly don my broken record hat to remind you, and myself: there is simply the present. This moment is what I have, this is where I am. And the beauty, the love, the opportunities that could have been are here, too. In different forms but in equal measure.
A final anatomical note on almosts: the use of the word dipped around 1989. I wonder why? Also - how wild to live in an age that spurts out graphs like this. According to google (do we trust?) the use of the word is trending up. I wonder if it’ll reach that same peak as it did around 1840. It was also pretty high around 1963, which just happened to be the year Plath wrote The Bell Jar.. coincidence!?
As per usual, THANK YOU for reading. Means the world. Hope you’re out there killing the present. Like & subscribe if you haven’t already. And stay tuned for a shift coming later this week xx
Love,
Ruby
Eughh! So fucking good. The second half of that paragraph about being by an Italian lake was (almost) psychedelic. Loved the weird feeling i got from considering what might cause the usage of almost to fluctuate! Also dropping hard linguistic data after a piece of existential rumination is a yummy contrast heheh
'There Are No Bad Choices' <3