“I should’ve married him.”

This thought smacked me like a rogue snowball on an otherwise peaceful walk near the Boise River. Maybe it was the chill in the air, or maybe it was my Spotify queue shuffling to Adele just as biting wind rustled the river birch trees, draping their weepy branches over the water. Whatever it was, I stood there, stunned by the audacity of my own brain.

I wasn’t unhappily single. Or even miserably floundering through post-breakup melancholy. But for one irreverent moment—a moment crystallized by Adele crooning about lost love—I revisited the fork in the road that had shaped my life. Marriage wasn’t the path I’d picked. And I wanted to know why that snow-dusted alternative was suddenly so appealing when, practically speaking, I had no real desire to walk it.

The Fork in the Road: When Love Meets Logistics

Matt. Sweet, steady, emotionally intelligent Matt. We met at a pop-up coffee shop in a repurposed train car downtown—because Boise, of course. He asked if he could share my table, and I, busy pretending to read Wallace Stegner while actually people-watching, said sure.

For two years, we built a life filled with tailgates at Boise State football games, brewery trivia nights, and hand-holding strolls through Camel’s Back Park. He introduced me to his enormous family, a phalanx of cousins and aunts who sent casseroles home with us after holidays. I introduced him to my hive of homebody friends who considered board games a full-contact sport.

There wasn’t a fight or betrayal that ended it—just the subtle gnawing realization that while our love was warm and companionable, it also felt... stationary. I wanted velocity, new adventures, moments that scared me into feeling fully alive. But Matt? He was content exactly where he was.

Maybe he would’ve happily stayed while I went on to pursue writing in Chicago or Denver or wherever else I was chasing some elusive version of Me 2.0. But I couldn't ask that of him—or of myself for him. So we ended it, trading the future we’d built for something resembling independence.

The Road I Chose: Wind, Mistakes, and Adventure

Leaving Matt felt like stepping out of a cozy cabin into a howling windstorm. For a while, every move I made felt wobbly: the choice to dive headfirst into a Chicago newsroom where my Idaho accent sometimes got me mistaken for Canadian; the series of hilariously bad first dates that punctuated my early freelancing days (including the guy who loudly exclaimed mid-meal, “Wait, you don’t like ‘Game of Thrones’?” as if I’d just confessed to hating puppies).

Sure, I gained experiences I wouldn’t trade for the world. But let’s be honest: some came at a sharper cost than I expected. There were long nights feeling like an outsider in big cities. Rent gave me anxiety rashes. Once, a Midwestern sleet storm almost knocked me flat on a curb—which was weirdly symbolic of my overall experience during that particular February.

Real growth came not out of chasing adventure, but by enduring those bad dates, lonely weeks, and rent-induced panic attacks without running back to what was comfortable. Growth also happened when I finally settled into something approximating home again––when I returned to Boise, stood on the familiar banks of the Boise River, and realized I liked who I became while navigating life without a romantic partner as my compass.

Reaching for the Ghost on the Other Path

So why the snowball moment? Why, years later, did I wonder about the life I’d be living if I’d said yes to the future Matt quietly mapped out for the two of us—the house with the big backyard, kids at his alma mater’s football games, an annually rotating casserole schedule?

Because we all do it. Every single one of us. The what-if-ing. The loop-de-looping of our decisions until hindsight polishes the road not taken into something impossibly magical.

In those moments, nostalgia hands us a version of events that looks like a movie montage: Matt smiling over beers by the campfire, me slipping on a ring under a willow tree. What nostalgia conveniently edits out is the gut-check decision-making I lived in real-time. It leaves out the part where I felt like my blood had turned fizzy when imagining the creative freedom I could explore in other cities. It forgets that Matt hated airplanes and that wanderlust burns in my DNA like sagebrush catching fire.

The Truth About the Road Not Taken

Here’s the thing about paths: We all romanticize the one we don’t choose. “You never know” becomes shorthand for clinging to the illusion that some perfect life exists at the end of a choice we didn’t make. But the truth? Both paths—whether I stayed or left—were bound to come with growing pains. Neither one was free of awkward silences, difficult compromises, or enough moments of doubt to wallpaper the inside of a good-sized she-shed.

What matters isn’t daydreaming about the life you didn’t pick. It’s this: knowing why you chose as you did. Pinning down the reasons lets you own that choice—even on days when Adele gets sneaky and decides to play a soundtrack to your regret.

For me, I’d still make the call to end things with Matt. Not because he was wrong, but because I needed to be right for myself first. There’s nothing wrong with valuing adventure when the heart of you craves it. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with letting go of one decent path for the chance to grow, stumble, fall, and ultimately thrive on another.

Empowering Takeaways: In Case You’re Torn at Your Own Crossroads

  1. Name Your Values – What really matters to you? Is it stability or spontaneity? Routine or novelty? Knowing your values makes navigating the fork easier.

  2. Permission to Leave—Or Stay – Sometimes leaving isn’t failure. And sometimes staying isn’t weak. Choosing either is courageous if it’s what serves your authentic self.

  3. Your Decision Isn’t a Forever Prison – No matter which path you take, life has twists. Trailheads open. Circumstances shift. You’re not beholden to one choice forever.

  4. Own the Choice Once It’s Made – Nostalgia loves lying. Trust the reasons you had and honor them, even if you get temporarily stuck in replay mode.

It’s easy to romanticize what we didn’t choose, but the real romance—the real reward—is learning to love the choices you did make. Do I still sometimes see Matt at Albertsons and feel a pang when he smiles, his toddler perched happily on his shoulders? Sure. But I walk away knowing I wouldn’t trade my windy, messy, joy-filled path for anyone else’s casserole schedule—no matter how delicious it sounds.