Oh man, I’m going to miss having my best kid! And another one too. But maybe I can avoid some mistakes with the one that’s a 9 month old on 1/1/2000.
Not much is different on a personal level. I’ve already got my husband…maybe I can prevent his heart attack. And I’m almost certain I can prevent my brother’s suicide!
I’m going to try to help with everything I can remember. Of course I’m going to try and prevent 9/11. If I pull that off do we avoid going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan? Oh wow, that would be great.
Hopefully I won’t drive myself crazy poring over the newspaper and realizing that I don’t remember enough details of a lot of things to help.
For one thing, I’m amazed at how long ago that is. I was idly digging through the archaeological layers of my life to figure out where I was at that point, and just kept getting further and further down. Turns out it was before pretty much my entire adult life. I was 20 at that point, I’m 32 now. Vast landscapes of life lies between. *Everything *happened in that time. Just twelve years! Unbelievable! It feels like hundreds of years.
Halfway through 6th grade. Didn’t have a locker yet and any email I had was on throwaway hotmail or yahoo accounts.
Step 1: Be nicer to Cody.
Step 2: Drop string bass and take up piano again.
Step 3: Try to convince my parents to let me switch to the public school for 7th grade and failing that, make sure to take them up on letting me go to public school for high school.
Yeah, there’s a lot more I’d do but that’s pretty much the pipe dream goal list for 6th grade.
I was still living crammed into one room in Oakville. I had planned my trip to Europe, the one that would solidify my knowledge of Esperanto, yet push me over the edge in terms of debt, leading to a nightmare of debt repayment. I’d know about the upcoming recession, and also know that I wouldn’t get laid off in the job I had (then, anyways).
Would I still be able to avoid my personal debt collapse? It led to me moving into that apartment in Toronto… what could I do, knowing that the crazy condo boom of the later 2000s was still about to happen? (I could spin tales of smartphones, and plastic banknotes, and Chinese maglev trains, and 3DTV, and ubiquitous GPS, and tsunami videos on YouTube, and the Arab Spring… but they’d probably just think it was science fiction.)
:eek: Ubiquitous social media. Facebook. Twitter. YouTube.
The tsunamis in the Indian Ocean and Japan! The earthquakes! Katrina! Christchurch! Would they believe me?
Cripes! I’d still have a chance to try to connect with Gabi, the Hungarian girl I met at my friends’ place! (I thought I was too old and never made a move, and had no idea she was interested in me…) And I’d know better than to try the house-design business! And I’d have almost ten years of experience to bring to the job position I had just started!
On the other hand, I was still in the counselling group, and they would know I’d changed inside. So would my friends and family. (I could reconnect with my aunt!)
If they didn’t hit it off themselves, perhaps they could at least agree to “share” their victims, and if nothing else, 50% fewer kids would end up getting buggered…
It’s winter break of Junior year of High school for me. In the immediate short term I’d probably have to fake some kind of brain injury because I don’t even clearly remember what classes I’d had the semester before, much less locker combo or anybody’s phone numbers… It would freak my mom out but I could probably pull it off without getting hospitalized. I’d clean my room because jesus it was a pit. I’d stop dressing in rags but keep experimenting with different styles to take advantage of teenager lack of responsibilities.
I’d also have to deal with my boyfriend, knowing now what I do about where our relationship would go. At that point we were 7 months into an eventual 10 year relationship which would end in a really upsetting divorce. Also one of my then best friends is my current (lost-future?) boyfriend, which would be awk-ward too.
I would probably buckle down more in classes, partially because I would have to to make up for lost memories, but partially because I now regret not taking more math and science. It would be a really exhausting year.
I think I’d end up going to the same college - if I did choose the same school I’d try waay harder to get certain scholarships I know more about in hindsight, and I’d live on campus freshman year (rather than in an apartment with the boyfriend). I’d also be able to make much better course choices and have better focus. Oh and I would get a higher paying job in high school and sock away five or six grand [in cash so it wouldn’t be counted against me on the FAFSA – in my family’s particular financial case this would have made a difference] for living expenses during college.
I would try to have a closer relationship with both my sisters through high school and college than I did in this timeline. I would avoid some social and business entanglements in my early 20s that brought me more pain than benefit, and I’d make sure to visit my grandmother more before she passed away in 2002 (I was living across the country and hadn’t seen her for over a year).
Initially I would try to write down a lot of what I remember of the lost future, both personal things and larger world issues. I don’t have a very strong memory, so I know a lot of it would fade in time. As for trying to change events, I don’t know that it would do much good, perhaps I’m fatalistic but the small things are just as likely to be different due to tiny timeline changes and the huge ones just seem to be inevitable. I would try to change my own actions toward the people in my life where applicable. By perhaps 2004 or 2005 I’d have adjusted fully and my life would be so different the other timeline might as well have not happened.
I’d keep the job I had then, which was actually a pretty sweet gig–assuming I could remember how to do it, which is less than certain. It was law related, but did not involve practicing law. I’d advise certain people I know to sell certain property they owned in the New Orleans area, and move the hell away before Katrina. I’d put more effort into a friendship I had…see if I could keep that guy from getting to the place where he committed suicide.
First off, one of my best friends committed suicide in 2005. I’ll never forget the date. I would do everything in my power to prevent that from happening.
Also, I met a guy in 2002. Married him in 2004. Separated 2007. Divorced 2008. I’d just skip going to game that day. The friends I have that I met through him, I could just as easily meet without him.
Finally, I had options to go to college with a full ride. Including room and board. And a stipend. But I wanted to go to a “better” school that only offered a large scholarship. Screw that; I’ll take the damn free ride this time around, thanks.
I already had my only daughter, so I’d look forward to making a few changes. I’d stay with my ex-husband (at least for a few more years) to see if we could make it work instead of giving up like I did. I’d still go to massage school in 2006, because I had a great year and I met some of my current best friends.
Honestly, I could see my life being really similar to the way it is now, but with my ex and I still together and my daughter having had a more stable childhood.
I think I’d be thrilled if that happened. Not that I haven’t had some good times these past 12 years, but nothing irretrievable has happened (I haven’t had any kids in that time) and it would be a great chance to relive the good parts and improve the bad parts.
I’d wake up in my parents’ house, being home for break from my freshman year of college. After getting over the initial confusion, it wouldn’t be too hard to pick up my life - I’d have all new classes the upcoming semester, so there’d be no difficulty figuring out what my routine is. With a little sleuthing I could remember everyone in my dorm’s name.
And then I’d just go live life, only better. Of course I’d also a) do whatever I could to improve the world, and b) try to get rich with my 12 years of foresight. One thing I’d probably need to do first would be to write down in as much detail as possible all I can remember about the past 12 years, to serve as a guide of sorts.
Hmmm. That was a pretty significant date for me, so I remember it pretty well. Found out the night before that my current loser boyfriend was cheating on me, also at the party the night before had my first real conversation with my now-husband.
If I could manage to get over the grief of losing my children, here’s what I’d change:
Would dump the jerk boyfriend immediately. Not that I didn’t at the time, but he had my head so messed up that we went back-and-forth for several more months after that. If I could go back, I would never, ever even speak to him again after that day.
I wouldn’t change anything about how things happened with my husband.
I would do everything in my power not to put on the weight I have since then. Much easier to keep the weight off than to lose it once it’s there!
I would definitely try to prevent any tragedies I could–9/11, etc. I’d have to think how to do it.
As for the rest…ah, the possibilities!! I’ve enjoyed my life since then, but there’s always room for improvement!
But please, no. I don’t want to lose my kids. Even if it means I can prevent 9/11 and become a billionaire.
I was in seventh grade. The first thing I would do is take a shower, then do ALL my laundry. I was the kid who didn’t shower, and now that I have a regular hygiene schedule I don’t think I would be able to go back to all that.
I’m not sure if I’d remember my class schedule. And relearning my locker combination would be interesting, though I don’t remember it being that hard a combo to remember.
Oh christ, I’d have gym class again. And piles of homework. And the only reason they’d be “piles” of homework is because I almost never did it. Ugh, I’m beginning to be very annoyed with you, past self.
Actually, repeating those years wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. Lord knows I’d keep my mouth shut/speak up when I needed to. I sort of wonder if my friends and family would notice a difference? It’d also be nice to repeat high school and college again. I did pretty well in both, but I didn’t really do all that I would’ve liked to do. If I went back knowing what I know now, I’d likely have excelled.
And I wouldn’t be old enough to vote, so I don’t think I’d have any sway on what happened in the 2000 election. As for 9/11, I have NO idea how I’d go about that. I was a freshman in high school when that happened, and I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t be considered the most credible person ever.
After recovering from the hangover I’d be despondent about the disappearance of my younger daughter. And I’d immediately break my infant’s attachment to her bottle, thereby saving my future self thousands in orthodontia bills.
I wouldn’t take the job I took a month later, just for the benefits, and therefore miss out on seven excruciating years in the insurance business. Instead, I’d look longer for something to supplement my brand-new consulting gig and work harder to make the consulting pay enough.
Since my kids were already born I’m not suffering the same torments that some in this thread are but there are definitely changes I would make.
I would buy less and travel more. The memories my kids have of their childhood all seem to be about stuff we did rather than the things we had. It would annoy my ex even more if we travelled with them more frequently but I would also give up on considering him in my decisions. Nothing I did ever made him happy so I would stop tormenting myself about it years earlier. I would definitely get a grip on my finances years sooner than I actually did and hopefully the future knowledge that I had would assist in that. I would NOT sell the house we were living in then. We all still miss that house
At first, I’d take it very slow and easy. We’re talking introducing chaotic elements into my life 11 years prior. Whatever I do in the year 2000, might have vast consequences into the 2011 I know right now.
So, while certain things like passwords and pin numbers I can probably remember, or reset, I’d be very careful about what I chose to actually change, because the earlier I introduce a new path of divergence, the harder it will be to predict what’s going to happen next in the bigger picture.
My daughter will only have been 2 years old, and I would be sure about getting her Asperger’s diagnosed earlier. But my son wouldn’t have been born until 2002. So, unless I duplicated the events that lovely night, right down to the nano second and atomic level (and a night which I can’t even remember the actual date, nevertheless the exact minute or second), chances are most certainly that my second-born would not be the kid I know and love today.
That’s creepy.
I’d definitely look into trying to prevent 9/11 and some other tragedies that I could remember. I’m not sure how I’d start though.
