If I had only...

 

"We could buy that luncheonette, serve just breakfast and lunch," my mother said. Along with my three-year old daughter, I was living with her. My extraordinarily stupid second marriage had failed in the first few weeks.

Together we had started Have a Happy, a small local bridal magazine, mainly an advertising publication.

Although my mother would have been good at the luncheonette, I wanted to be a writer, but I needed to find a way to earn my living, write and live in Europe.

I had thought of being a family lawyer in the way of my divorce  attorney, Magueritte Pettipit. I had thought of joining the foreign service so I could travel and live in other countries. For both I had crammed for the necessary exams, which vastly increased my knowledge of American history and culture.

I couldn't imagine myself behind the counter or as a short order cook. 

Instead I took a job as a copywriter for the National Fire Protection Association and as Robert Frost wrote in The Road Not Taken "and that has made all the difference."

One job led to another. In my quests I lived in Boston, loving the cultural and historic parts of the city, had interesting work, including starting a credit union that is over a billion dollars today and having friends until I ended up in Switzerland with a sales job I hated, but with working papers and finally my Swiss nationality.

It also led me to the Geneva Writers Group, which gave me a short cut in improving my craft and resulted in the publication of my first novel, Chickpea Lover: Not a Cookbook. 

I developed many friendships and experiences along the way, not all good, but all life enriching.

There are times when I'm at other luncheonettes like Dempsey's when I visit my grown daughter in Malden, one I stopped at in New Hampshire and ate waffles with blueberry syrup, or the places where I'm a regular in Vandoeuvres, Switzerland or Argelès, France, I think, "If I had bought that luncheonette with my mother, how different my life would have been.

It probably would have been a good life in many ways. I sometimes imagine what my mother, who was creative and a gourmet cook would have done to change that luncheonette. She might have driven away the crowd that wanted their eggs and muffins with their morning coffee before starting the day. Or she might have found a new customer base.

We will never know what would have happened if I had only... Instead, I think I have lived the life I was meant to live, a writer living in Europe with no regrets.

Check out www.dlnelsonwriter.com for D-L's other novels.