I wonder sometimes how it could have worked out if I’d had decent guidance. The prospect of living back under my mother’s glare or having to do homework again feels awfully tiring, though. And I’ve forgotten my locker combination! And my schedule. And where the classrooms are. Fuck, I can’t remember what a secant is!
I would have to fight back for my own vision of life rather than my mother’s. Now that I have the life experience to even have one. Back then I was so aware I didn’t know anything about life and the world. Would she fold, or would she go thermonuclear?
Maybe the butterfly’s wing would be a little different and there’d literally be nuclear war.
Maybe I’d be satisfied to see videos of other versions of myself in other universes and see what was possible.
Say you still get your same kids.
I know the usual answer is to buy stocks, but that seems too easy.
If you were a character in a book, you’d try to stop one of the famous disasters. Conveniently, they always remember lots of details about the famous disasters.
I’ve gone over this in my mind a thousand times. All the things I’d do different, and all the mistakes I’d correct. But in the end I cannot figure out how to organically build a relationship with my wife when I’ve made life choices that put me in a completely different career, and probably a different city than her. It would be impossible. Plus, I’d be trying to woo her with 20 years of history and love, and hoping somehow she feels that new relationship energy from us together? It wouldn’t work. I’d have to sacrifice the love of my life to correct the mistakes in my life, and that is not a good trade. So, ultimately I would not do it.