6:19 PM

There are a few things I know.

One.

Regina is screaming.

I know this because I know her voice as distinct as my own and I've heard that screaming directed at me enough to know it anywhere. I've heard it enough to know even through the closed door that Regina is screaming.

Safe, but screaming.

Two.

Life is funny.

In all of the ways that we never bother to think of.

It's made up of moments, big and small that can define our day… our week…

Our life.

Like how you lose your glasses and search angrily for them for ten minutes before realizing they've been on your head the entire time.

How a day of intense loneliness can turn in an instant towards a place of belonging when you've been searching your whole life.

How you find your peace in a person you can't stop warring with.

Life is funny, because you never know how anything is ever going to go.

Each decision that we make effects the next moment of every day.

Three.

Life is unpredictable.

Nothing is every concrete, yet somehow there are some things we cannot escape.

See? Funny.

Every instant of every single one of our days is based off of the one before it and is therefore always changing. It's the very reason that we ask ourselves what could I have done different? What could I have changed?

Where would it have taken me instead?

Are there infinite possibilities out there playing out millions of decisions that we have made differently?

We have all had moments where we thought if I had just done this instead of that, would I have been better off?

If I had turned left to go to work that day instead of right…

If I had never made that phone call at 2 AM…

If I had just have walked away instead of following someone else, would I have raised my kid?

Four.

Life is patient.

Because then what?

Because if I had changed something, just one tiny thing from the way I did it, that kid wouldn't have found me and I wouldn't have found the place I was meant to be… as crazy as that seems right now.

So, if we could change those moments, would we?

I know what you're thinking, Emma Swan is waxing philosophic.

Who knew, right?

I suppose it was bound to happen given the life I've led. I mean, this is where I always thought I was going to end up, so why am I surprised?

Is it because I had begun to find a sense of happiness?

Of belonging?

I knew I was destined for this at some point and so, I changed everything I could so that it would not happen and yet… here I am.

So, maybe those infinite possibilities are just waiting to lead us to the eventual destination we are meant to reach. We can change every detail and vigilantly fight against a rising tide we can feel in our bones, but we still somehow get there anyway.

Maybe we aren't supposed to change the ending, just the paths we take to get there.

Is that what destiny is?

I don't know.

There are only a few things I know.

Like Regina is screaming.

For me.

Which seems odd, but also kind of suddenly right.

Right in that way that you realize something monumentally important a second too late.

Like the look in his eyes before he pulled the trigger.

So, yeah. Those are things I know. Life is funny and unpredictable and patient.

Because Regina is screaming…

…and I am wondering what I could have done different.