This morning, like many mornings, I woke up and felt a dull soreness in my leg where I broke my ankle. My first thought, the one that immediately preceded “I’m really glad I didn’t shut down my blog because I want to write this down” was that I wish I could go back in time to stop myself from breaking my ankle. There’s not much good to say about having broken my ankle It hurts from time to time, I lost flexibility, it cost me money and my feeling of independence. I tried to make the most of the incident, but my life would be better if I had never broken my ankle.
That got me to thinking what other events I would change if I could go back in time.
My first thought was that I’d like my grandmother not to die so young because I barely knew her, and everyone always spoke so highly of her. But even if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t be able to keep her alive. That was out of anyone’s control.
Then I started thinking of other things I want to change about my past, and I thought of all the wasted hours I spent mindlessly watching TV, all the junk food I ate as a kid, and all the nights I stayed in because I was too shy to go out, and the people that I treated more kindly. But none of those were singular incidents, so I can’t set the machine to a time, day and place to stop myself.
I also thought that I’d like to go back to the night when I said something that insulted my former best friend. She said that was the reason she no longer wants to be my friend because of what I said, but didn’t tell me that until years later. So that makes me think that our friendship ended not just because of one thing I said, and probably would have been doomed anyway, because she gets easily offended, and I often misspeak. There’s no point in trying to take back one offhand comment.
As I started reviewing my own history, I thought about my relationship with Birmingham. I’m still sad that’s over, and we don’t really talk anymore, which also makes me sad, but I don’t regret the time we had together, so I’m going to skip right over that and keep it in my life when time machines get invented. There’s no doubt those were some good years of my life that I want to keep.
As I remember one of the worst parts of my life, I think of the last movie that I worked on which was awful in most every way. I was so desperately unhappy working on that movie, knowing I was in the wrong business, and hating everyone around me. But if I hadn’t done that movie, I would have never had the need to try something new, which led me to take a job in the Hudson Valley. Even though the job that brought me here didn’t last and now I sell insurance for a living (something that is so completely not easy) I don’t regret that at all. I’m too early in on my new career to decide if I would do things over. Some days I want to stop so badly, but quitters never win, and the good days are really really good.
I decided I was going to keep thinking about my life until I could come up with just two more incidents that I’d like to change because I’d be better off for it. My criteria was that they had to be avoidable, specific, and the net outcome was bad.
We’ve established that the first time machine trip would be to November 1 2007, kickball field, approximately 6:30PM. I’d land the machine, point to myself and say, “Just bunt the ball and run. Don’t try any fancy kicking. Better yet, just keep score.”
From there, I would go to late spring 2002. I had a week off from the play I was doing, and I decided to go to LA. The Man Of Action joined me for a few days, then I had a day to myself, and then I went to visit a former co-worker. On the day to myself, I went to Venice Beach. After lying on the beach on a towel, I felt sunburned on my stomach, so I drove up to Santa Monica to hang out there for a while. I got bored and wanted more beach time, so I put on a shirt and fell asleep on my stomach. What I didn’t know was the bottom of my shirt was up, exposing about eight inches of my back. When I woke up, the skin on my stomach really started to feel crisp, and I realized I had exposed that strip of skin on my back. I had put some sunscreen on my legs, but missed the backs of my knees. Within a few hours, it all started to hurt and feel tender, and by the end of the day, I had scorching red marks on my stomach, back and knees, which meant it hurt to sit, lie down, and drive. I spent the rest of vacation driving around with a wet washcloth that I’d leave on the air conditioner and then put on my burns, which eventually blistered. It wasn’t the only time in my life my pale skin’s been burned, but it was the worst burn. And every time I hear about the dangers of skin cancer, that vacation pops back into my memory. I’d like to change that…
Finally, the only other specific decision I’d like to reverse is my choice to go to my high school graduation. There was no reason to be there, and I have no fond memories of the day, years later. It wasn’t a traumatic day or anything, but I should have been doing something else. I should have gone to summer camp. For eight straight years, I went to summer camp in Maine, seven weeks at a time. It was my favorite place in the entire world, and holds all my happy memories. Because my school district went to the very end of June, I usually left for camp a less than a week after the school year ended. But the summer after my senior year of college, I was too old to be a camper, and had to be a counselor. But to be a counselor, you have to go a week of training called pre-camp. You’re not allowed to miss any of it, especially if you’re a new counselor. My high school graduation was a few days after the last day of classes, and going to it meant missing all of pre-camp. I knew of the conflict early on, and spent a good portion of senior year weighing the choice between camp and graduation, and chose graduation because it seemed so Mandatory and Important. Looking back, I have no idea why. I was a solid B+ student, and there was no suprise that I was able to graduate. The ceremony was one hour of my life, and it wasn’t even with the entire class because it rained and we had to be split in two to fit into the auditorium. Half of my friends were in the other ceremony. There were lots of parties afterward, and I suppose that I enjoyed some of them. I’m also recalling wanting to spend time with a boy I liked, and working on a play, but there were boys and plays at summer camp. Looking back from this vantage, an adult stuck having to work through the summer, with all my heart, I wish I could pack up and spend seven weeks in Maine on a lake. If I had just one more summer to do that, I that would be for the better.
Okay, back to blog hiatus again. I regret that, but I’m not going to go back in time to change it. But I am curious, does anyone else have a moment in their past they would re-do?
