Shoulda Woulda Coulda

I have a bad habit. Mr. Random has pointed it out to me many times and he doesn't understand why I engage in it. Truthfully, I don't know if I fully understand either. I worry a lot about the "could have beens". When I see something so clearly after the fact (hindsight being 20/20 and all) I obsess about how things could have been different. And how much better they would be if I had done that one thing differently. Or chosen the other option. Etc. Etc.

For instance, when we lost the house. I can't tell you the hours I spent agonizing over how we should never have bought it in the first place. Or how we should have bought a smaller house. Or one closer to town. Or how I should have gotten a real job and kept it instead of going back for my Ph.D. Or. Or. Or.

Or now, when we have 2 Honda Civics, one with some damage in need of repair. Both very fuel efficient, but on the smaller side for our now 3 person family. That new little person comes with a LOT of gear! Right now, I would love love love to have a small SUV. I've got my eye on Honda CR-V's and Hyundai Tucsons and even Subaru Outbacks or Foresters. And the regret comes in to remembering 2 years ago when we bought the second Civic. It made sense at the time - we were both driving 40+ miles a day (Mr. Random was driving more like 70) and fuel efficiency and reliability was the name of the game.  But now - a short two years later I would much rather have a small SUV instead of the new Civic. We could have bought a used SUV and gotten a lot of use out of it already! We like camping off-road and that's how the one Civic got the damage the currently needs to be repaired. Civics just aren't really built for forest roads.

So now I obsess. We could have bought an SUV instead of the second Civic. And now I'd even use the words should have. But we couldn't have known it at the time. We weren't even pregnant. We weren't really planning on it either. We had started to realize we'd probably be losing the house - but it was still a probably, and in the meantime, we had our long commutes.

So here we are. With two very good little cars, that serve us just fine, but I still find myself obsessing about what could have and worse maybe should have been.