Possibiliphobia

I don't think I've ever had a phobia. I get scared by so many things in life, but I was never really able to identify that one thing that always scared me. A few days ago, I think I finally figured it out.

I'm scared of what I might become, and even more scared of what I might not become.
Maybe it's about society, its expectations and all that bullshit, but I don't think it's related to it. I've learned more than once to stop caring about what parents, teachers and people tell you to be, to aim for, and I've decided that I should live for myself before living for someone else.

No, that's not it.

It's about choices. Those you make, but also those you don't make. It's about becoming old and looking back at your life, wondering what it could have been if you hadn't studied this, if you married someone else, if you lived in another country.

That is what scares me. I am terrified by the infinite amount of possibilities that there are in life, by the fact that we only get to choose once something that could literally become anything. Even if I'm happy with my life, with myself, with everything, I'll still yearn to experience another form of happiness, another life, another me, and know that I'll never be able to achieve that other version of my existence. I'm condemned to one, single life.

Becoming an adult scares me, because growing older means making choices. It means possibilities thrown away forever. Having children or not. Choosing this career over another. Living here instead of there. I don't want to choose: I want to try everything. Whenever I look at successful adults, people who make tons of money, have happy and healthy children and plenty of time for themselves, who live the life they wanted to live, I can't help but wonder if they don't wish, sometimes, to be someone else, just for the sake of it.

My dad once told me he wanted to be young again, to have all of life's possibilities again. It's been stuck in my head ever since. He said he envied me, because I could still make all the choices he had made or not made long ago.

Why should I choose? I don't want to choose. Is it better to live a life you didn't choose, knowing in the end that you could've never done anything to change it?

Ironically, I end up doing nothing with my life. I want to be good at everything, yet I don't even try. I want to meet everyone, to try everything, to be everything I could be, and yet I waste my time doing the same repetitive things over and over again, so I don't have to choose. The more I wander, the harder it is to go back, so I just stay there. I stay there and wait, because I'm scared.

I'm fascinated by role playing games. Becoming someone else, just for a few hours. Looking at life through someone else's eyes. I wish life itself would be that easy. I wish I could play it over and over again, and know that, whatever happens, I could always try once more until I got tired of it.

That I wouldn't have to choose once, only once, who I will become.

That I wouldn't have to look at a sea of possibilities for the rest of my life, wondering what would've happened if.

What if?