The Women I Could Have Been
When I was younger, I was fascinated by the concept of parallel universes. It was comforting to imagine that with every decision I made, be it great or small, the world I inhabited split off, and a new version of me was born. The day I dropped out of my soul-sucking AP US History class to focus on writing, another Ella chose to tough it out and grew up to be a scrappy politician fighting for reproductive rights. I went to prom with my best friend and reveled in our platonic and drama-free evening, but another Ella asked her crush to be her date, grinded her heart out to Nelly and threw up in the back of a tacky Hummer limo. Somewhere there’s the Ella who majored in English instead of Gender Studies (despite her loathing of poetry), and another me missed that amazing Bear Hands concert to study for her Intro to Biology final like she was supposed to.
There was no need to worry about lingering “what ifs” when a spinoff version of me lived that life in another world, meeting her own complications and making her own mistakes. Those other Ellas were the sisters I never had, warped mirror images that were edgier, more responsible, my younger siblings and older role models. They made other friends, fell in love with faraway cites and chose paths unthinkable to me. How many Ellas were there, all sharing a past but each with an entirely different future held in her small hands?
I never resented them or wondered if I’d made a wrong decision. Even as a kid, I was a firm believer in the guiding principal of “What’s done is done.” These alternate lives were like fireflies I caught for a few minutes to marvel at their glow. I wished those other Ellas well and then let the fantasy go without any regret. My life wasn’t perfect, but I wouldn’t trade it.
As I got older, I made one decision that I would call fateful, if it didn’t seem so benign at the time. I went to a party, and at that party I met a boy. Three weeks later I woke up with an outbreak of genital herpes, and the universe fractured again, this time permanently. There was me, and, somewhere else, there was the Ella who was still “clean.”
It’s normal to freak out about what you lose when you get diagnosed with an incurable STI like genital herpes. First and foremost is the chance to have reckless, impulsive sex without a prior conversation about safety. When I think about Parallel Ella, I wonder if her sex life is simpler than mine. Is it less stressful, not having to think about disclosing, and the risk of transmission, and the potential judgment of every new partner? Would she have asked that cute guy at the ’90s dance party last weekend to go home with her instead of just getting his number? Parallel Ella has gone through a lot, but her skin is baby soft without the calluses of emotional trauma. She does not know what it is to be marked, to feel her body erupt like it is under someone else’s control, to relearn her desire after being warned it is a danger to public welfare. She reads about stigma in books and feels secure using condoms.
I’m not sure if I envy her, or if I want to protect her from what she doesn’t know.
I think less about what I lost when I got sick and more about what Parallel Ella will never have: the violent, burning sense of purpose that sexual health activism has given me somewhere within my ribcage. The breathless trust of a partner who chooses to forgo using condoms despite the risk because he loves me that much. The voice I reclaimed from the shame that stole it, and the words I wield like torches to help myself and others see.
There is no doubt Parallel Ella has learned to have faith in herself by overcoming some other gritty, exhausting obstacle, and she too wonders about her lost sister of “before” and “after.” She writes erotica, creates a blog, dreams of moving to San Francisco and maybe she even does it (although I think she would have hated it there as much as I did). Parallel Ella is smart, and cutting, and she wants so desperately to be loved. But I don’t know her, and I’m not sure that I want to. It is hard to be jealous of someone who has nothing that you need.
