The Person I Could Have Been
There’s someone who haunts every mirror I pass, every quiet moment when my guard is down, every achievement that feels smaller than it should. It’s not a stranger or an enemy—it’s the person I could have been if I had been braver, if I had chosen differently, if I had listened to the voice that whispered “yes” instead of the one that screamed “no.”
He looks like me but stands straighter, speaks with more conviction, takes up space without apology. He’s the version who took the job across the country, who started the business when it was just a crazy idea, who said “I love you” first, who traveled solo through places that scared me, who trusted his instincts when logic advised caution.
This ghost carries all my unlived lives, all the roads not taken, all the selves I didn’t allow myself to become. He’s fluent in languages I thought about learning, skilled at instruments I bought but never practiced, confident in rooms where I felt small. He embodies every “what if” and “if only” that visits me in the space between sleep and waking.
The haunting is particularly acute because this isn’t a fantasy person—it’s me, with different choices. Same DNA, same starting point, same basic capabilities, but with courage where I had fear, action where I had hesitation, faith where I had doubt. The ghost represents not the impossible but the possible-but-unchosen.
Sometimes I catch glimpses of who I could have been in other people who took risks I wouldn’t take, who built lives from blueprints I was too afraid to follow. They’re living the parallel universe where I said yes to opportunity, where I bet on myself, where I decided that the cost of trying was less than the cost of wondering.
The haunting intensifies with age because the gap between who I am and who I could have been widens with each year of cautious choices. The dreams I deferred become harder to pursue. The chances I didn’t take don’t come around again in the same form. The person I could have been grows more distant as the person I am becomes more fixed.
But here’s what I’m slowly learning: the ghost in the mirror isn’t there to torture me—he’s there to remind me that possibility still exists. That the gap between who I am and who I could be can still be narrowed by different choices starting right now. That courage is not a permanent character trait but a decision available in every moment.
The person I could have been haunts me not because he’s lost forever but because he’s still accessible. Every day offers small opportunities to become more like him—to speak up instead of staying silent, to try instead of planning, to risk instead of protecting.
Maybe the haunting will stop when I stop choosing safety over growth, comfort over possibility, fear over the person I glimpse in the mirror when I’m brave enough to really look.
Tonight I want to make one choice that the ghost would be proud of, to close the gap just slightly between who I am and who I could still become.
