I turned down grad school for a relationship—here are 8 "what ifs" that still haunt me

Sometimes I wake up at three in the morning and wonder who I would have become if I'd chosen differently.

It's been over forty years since I stood in my tiny apartment, holding an acceptance letter to a prestigious graduate program in one hand and my boyfriend's promise ring in the other. I chose the ring.

And while that relationship ended just six years later, the questions about that choice have never quite left me alone.

We tell ourselves that dwelling on past decisions is pointless, that what's done is done. But I've learned through decades of living that acknowledging our "what ifs" can actually teach us something profound about who we are and what we value.

So here are the eight questions that still visit me, usually when I least expect them.

1. What if I had become the scholar I dreamed of being?

The graduate program was in comparative literature, and I can still remember the thrill of being accepted. I'd spent my undergraduate years devouring books, writing papers that my professors praised, imagining myself teaching at a university someday.

When I turned it down, I told myself there would be other opportunities. But life has a way of closing certain doors permanently.

Years later, I did go back to school as a single mother with two toddlers, but it was for a teaching certificate, not a PhD. The path was practical, necessary, and I don't regret it.

But sometimes I catch myself in the library, running my fingers along the spines of academic journals, and I wonder about the dissertations I never wrote, the research I never conducted, the students I might have mentored at a different level.

2. What if I had learned to trust my own judgment earlier?

At nineteen, when I met him, and at twenty-two when we married, I genuinely believed that love required sacrifice. Not compromise, which is healthy, but sacrifice of the self. I thought choosing him over grad school proved my commitment, my maturity, my readiness for real life.

What it actually proved was that I didn't yet trust my own dreams enough to fight for them.

This haunts me not because of the specific choice, but because of what it revealed about my younger self. How many other times in those early years did I silence my own voice because I thought someone else's opinion mattered more?

3. What if I had understood that timing matters?

There's a Virginia Woolf quote I've always loved: "Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo." But some opportunities in life do come with expiration dates.

When you're twenty-two, you think you have infinite time to circle back to abandoned dreams. You don't realize that some chances, once declined, transform into something else entirely or disappear altogether.

The graduate program I turned down doesn't even exist anymore. The professor who championed my application retired fifteen years ago. The academic landscape itself has shifted dramatically.

Even if I could go back now, it wouldn't be to the same opportunity I once held in my hands.

4. What if I had been brave enough to choose both?

Here's what I never seriously considered at the time: trying to have both the relationship and the education. He said it would be too hard with me in school, that we needed to focus on building our life together. I accepted this as truth without questioning it.

But what if I had pushed back? What if I had asked him to support my dreams the way I was being asked to support his?

Looking back, I realize that a partner who truly loved me would have wanted me to flourish, not to shrink. The relationship I sacrificed my education for wasn't strong enough to survive anyway. We divorced when I was twenty-eight, and he left me to raise our two children alone.

5. What if financial security had come easier?

Would that graduate degree have changed my financial trajectory? It's impossible to know, but I think about this when I remember the two years I needed food stamps to feed my children, or the morning my car broke down and I had to swallow my pride to accept help from a neighbor I barely knew.

I think about it when I remember missing my son's college graduation because I couldn't afford the plane ticket, a regret that still makes my chest tight.

Education doesn't guarantee financial security, but it does tend to expand options. And options, I learned the hard way, can make the difference between stability and struggling.

6. What if I had modeled different choices for my children?

My kids watched me go back to school when they were small, saw me studying at the kitchen table after they went to bed, celebrated with me when I finally got my teaching certificate. They saw resilience and determination, and I'm proud of that.

But what if they had seen me pursue my passion from the beginning? What if they had grown up with a mother who never had to explain why she gave up her dreams?

We teach our children through our choices, and I've always wondered what lesson they absorbed from mine. Did they learn about sacrifice and love, or did they learn that women's dreams come second?

7. What if regret is actually a teacher in disguise?

This might sound strange, but I'm beginning to wonder if my "what ifs" have served a purpose. They've made me fiercely protective of other people's dreams.

As a high school teacher for thirty-two years, I never once told a student to be practical when they shared their ambitions with me. I pushed them to apply for scholarships, to take risks, to believe in themselves. Maybe I became the champion for others that I needed when I was young.

8. What if the story isn't over yet?

At my age, it would be easy to believe that all the big choices have been made, that I'm living in the epilogue of my story. But recently, I've been wondering if that's just another limiting belief. No, I won't get a PhD in comparative literature now.

But what if there are other dreams still waiting to be discovered? What if the lessons learned from old regrets can fuel new adventures?

I've taken up writing in retirement, sharing what I've learned through living. It's not the academic career I once imagined, but it's something. Maybe it's even something better, shaped by the very experiences that came from the path I did take.

Final thoughts

I don't believe in living with regret, but I do believe in living with honesty. Those eight "what ifs" aren't wounds anymore; they're windows into understanding myself better. They remind me that every choice carries weight, that dreams matter, and that it's never really too late to honor the parts of ourselves we once set aside.

The graduate school letter is long gone, but the curiosity, the hunger for knowledge, the desire to contribute something meaningful? Those are still very much alive. And that, perhaps, is what matters most.