the Butterfly effect

The Butterfly effect

Indeed, an action that lasts only a few seconds can have consequences that change everything. The idea is that a butterfly flapping its wings in one corner of the world could trigger a hurricane in another. I don’t know if that’s true (and I doubt it) but I’m very familiar with the concept. In fact, one of my favorite movies is The Butterfly Effect. Because it spoke to me, and it captivated me. Back when I discovered this movie, I was in a relationship with the love of my life, my childhood sweetheart.

We grew up as neighbors, then went to the same elementary school, where we were in love for several years. A feeling I experienced very young; at 7, 8, 9, and 10 years old, those years. The 90s era, when there were “booms” and the fifteen-minute slow dance… and those were incredible moments at that age: gathering the courage to go ask your sweetheart to dance, and swaying together to songs like Pour que tu m’aimes encore by Céline Dion… unbelievable…

We broke up at the end of elementary school, and then found each other again in high school, older. And in grade 11, around 17 years old, we got back together, and this time it wasn’t just love letters and slow dances. It was a Romeo-and-Juliet kind of story, really… and the craziest part is that we knew it! We were different in some ways, but we loved each other deeply.

Then, in the middle of that relationship, we discovered the movie together. A guy who loves a girl, who finds a way to go back to the past and change certain things so that the future turns out better. The problem (without spoiling too much) is that when he changes one thing, it changes something else, and something always goes wrong. And when I watched the movie for the first time, with my beloved by my side, it felt like time had stopped. We loved the movie so much that we watched it again right away.

And I felt something strange, as if I were imagining myself in a different past, or imagining multiple possible futures. Our relationship lasted several years. We almost could have gotten engaged, but unfortunately, I wasn’t mature enough to realize that you don’t get two stories like that in a lifetime. We broke up, half by mutual agreement. In the first days, she wanted us to get back together and I didn’t. Then a week or two later, it was the opposite… In the end, we didn’t get back together. She met someone shortly after. Time passed. She lived her life, got married, had children. On my side, I moved to Canada, got married, had a child… Then long after, I got divorced… and she did too… and she got into another relationship.

The passage of time is fascinating, and that’s one of the reasons I loved that movie so much - and still do today. Even more now, in my forties. When I think back to that time, more than twenty years ago… If I went back to one precise moment, even for a few seconds or minutes, everything would be different. But reality doesn’t work like that. As far as I know, we can’t go back to the past or into the future. Maybe some people can… maybe it wouldn’t even be a blessing. Maybe changing things would only create new problems we don’t have in our current reality, just like in the movie. Maybe I’m saying this to comfort myself, to accept the idea that we don’t have a choice but to embrace our reality, whatever we may think of it. La hawla wa la qouwata illa biLlah, as we say in Arabic, along with al hamdouliLlah ‘ala koulli hal.

In the meantime, the butterfly effect is very real.

In the middle of July, while I was in full “matrix mode” trying to rebuild myself on all levels (physically, financially, mentally, to-do list, projects, goals…), something happened that completely changed things. An action lasting a few seconds, whose consequences I’m still facing today. I had just moved into a much better place, and I was doing overtime to get on top of my finances again. Then one Friday, just as I was about to leave with my truck (I’m a FedEx delivery driver), a coworker ran toward me to ask if I wanted to play soccer that weekend. Since I had gotten back into sports, I accepted happily. Sunday came, I was with my son, and I asked him if he wanted to join. He said yes. So we went.

Right before leaving, an old friend - with whom I had cut ties a few weeks earlier - rang the doorbell as we were heading out. He wanted to talk, and I didn’t, because I felt we had nothing left to say and it was better for our paths to separate. So we left for the game.

When we arrived, we were a bit late, and the level was higher than expected. It was indoors, big guys, people with cleats… I thought it was going to be a chill, relaxed soccer game - I mean, we’re in Canada, and there were guys in their thirties - but I was wrong!
So I tried to mentally prepare myself to play my A-game.

No warm-up. First play. I’m defending. The guy with the ball isn’t even moving. I try to get solid on my feet: I fall 🤣. He didn’t even need to dribble; I was already on the ground by myself. My shoes weren’t adapted, the floor was slippery, but still, no excuses. I told myself I had to step it up! I was there to have fun, sure, but I’m a competitor, a tryharder, and I wanted to play well. Not to prove anything to others nor to myself - just play well, get a few nice actions in: crosses, tackles, headers, shots, etc.

Barely 20 minutes into the game, one of my teammates broke through on the left wing and crossed the ball behind me. I was shoulder-to-shoulder with a defender, and hoping to pull off a kind of half-volley with a 180-degree spin, I tried to shoot directly, without controlling the ball, with all my strength… I missed the ball completely, dislocated my kneecap, and fell to the ground. At first glance, just like the first play, it was kind of funny! Some of my teammates who didn’t see well thought it was a big foul, when in reality the defender hadn’t touched me at all - I had totally auto-vavré myself again!

On the ground, tense with pain, unable to stand up, I crawled off to the side telling the guys to keep playing without me. I tried to assess the situation - how bad the pain was, whether I needed to go to the ER, and after a few minutes I thought maybe it would pass. I sat for at least 20 minutes, trying to recover like magic, then stood back up, limping slightly. I even hesitated to go back on the field, at least to defend. But after a quick chat with a teammate, I realized it was over… I was limping.

I went outside to get some fresh air and sun while waiting for the game to finish, and after half an hour of sitting, the pain was even worse when I started walking again because I had cooled down.

I still managed to drive home with my son. Then I saw a doctor after a few days because I couldn’t bend my leg. This first doctor told me that no ligament was torn, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to walk. He just told me to put ice on it and that it should get better in a week or two. At the end of July, I traveled to France for vacation. I saw another doctor there because my knee wasn’t improving, and he recommended an MRI after suspecting a meniscus injury. When I came back to Canada, I saw yet another doctor, did an MRI, and a few weeks later, we saw the results: ligament torn.

And this affected my whole present life. It didn’t help me mentally, I haven’t been able to work for 4 months, and it’s hard to move around. And despite the handicap it causes, it’s not considered an urgent case, and I may have to wait up to 9 months before getting surgery! It affects my finances, my work, my everyday life, and it’s going to last until next summer.

My goal isn’t to dramatize things - there are far worse situations than mine. It’s simply to go back to the butterfly effect concept. If only I hadn’t tried that shot - one even Cristiano would have missed - if only I had thought to control the ball first and then shoot, even with my left foot, all of this wouldn’t have happened. If I had chosen to talk to that former friend and cancel the game. If I had left 30 seconds earlier, before my coworker suggested playing soccer. So many different scenarios that would have led to a different future than the one I’m living now.

And that’s when the famous saying “if ifs and buts were candy and nuts…” (French version: avec des si, on mettrait Paris en bouteille) makes perfect sense. Because we could remake the world with “ifs.” And sometimes, small decisions, small actions, choices made in the blink of an eye can lead to such different consequences.

I try my best to stay positive, to see the glass half full. I tell myself that if it happened, then it’s part of my past (as Fabe would say), and I can’t change it. I have to accept it - there’s no choice there. And it’s on me now to bounce back so my future can be better thanks to this event. Because now we can imagine other scenarios in the good direction: maybe thanks to this, I’ll find a better job. Maybe now it will push me further, and I’ll get back into streaming regularly and make a living from it within a year. Maybe this situation will make me pay more attention, and I’ll meet my future partner in a place where, without this injury, I would never have been… Who knows!

In the meantime, there are decisions and choices that - in just a few seconds - can change the course of things. And in my opinion, we should always think before acting. But once the decisions are made and the actions are taken, whatever happens, we can’t change anything.

As Kery James said: “If I had to do it all over again, surely I would’ve done things differently. But things are the way they are, and they will never be otherwise.”
So I invite you - I invite us - to embrace things as they are in the present. And to do the best we can with the tools we have. As for the results, the future, and everything we can’t control… we hope for the best, and time will tell.

Take care of yourselves and your choices, and I wish you all serenity and happiness ❤️

Péo