When Would You Pick?

If you were to die today and were offered the chance to be injected into your own mind at any point in your life’s timeline, when would you pick?

Before you had your children? For me, that one’s easy because I don’t have children. Chances are very high that, even if you try to avoid it, the butterfly effect will result in you having different children.

Before you met your spouse? I’ve been with The Laird for about half my life. Keeping him in it drastically limits the restore points.

And I’ve already done that. If were to re-do my life, I wouldn’t try for a “better” me, I’d go for a “different” me. Assuming my “now” personality comes back with me, that’s still limiting.

For example, if I had to pick a reincarnation, I would pick either athlete or research scientist because I’m so very much not either. I’d like something very different, yet something I now find interesting. I hate exercise. What would it be like to love it and have a life that revolves around it? I’m too dumb to do anything that involves actual math. Quantum computing only involves 2×2 matricies and that linear algebra taxes me. I know what differential equations and tensor are, but I can’t do anything with one. What would it be like to be a mathematician or physicist who actually understands – and likes – math?

Being injected into one’s own timeline would not (for this exercise) change you, beyond bringing back whatever has changed naturally in the first lifetime.

Oh! That sets a date! I’m not sure of the exact date, but a co-worker of mine at college in 1986 offered me chewing tobacco. I said “yes” then dipped for the next 25 years. I’m still vaping. Saying “no” then would have been a much better outcome. Note to any parental readers: Feel free to chide your kids about alcohol and pot, but be death on nicotine. It’s much, much harder to quit. I can’t compare it to anything else because I haven’t tried anything else (and therefore have not tried to stop using anything else).

Being heterosexual is not an option for “going back”. However, I’ve known many gay men who have married and had children (how honest they were with their wives is a detail to which I am not privy). That’s on the table and a 1986 reset makes it possible.

I don’t think there is anything I particularly want to change about high school. There are plenty of small things, but I can’t think of anything life changing. More awareness that I was gay would definitely change things, but while day-to-day would change, I don’t see an outcome that is much different. Psychologically, probably, but I can see that going either better or worse.

Middle school sucked, but I don’t think re-doing it would help. Going through puberty just sucks. Doing it twice wouldn’t unsuck it, just change the suckiness. Nothing particularly interesting happened in middle school (that I remember). The good highlight, both then and now, is my art teacher Pam Persik. The worst thing – other than general puberty – that I still remember was some asshole named Bruce; I don’t even remember his last name. Dealing with him differently isn’t worth reliving everything else.

One of the things about living in Denver is that I was accepted to Regis University. Every time I drove past the exit sign on the interstate, I wondered how my life would be different had I gone there. UW-Madison was a very bad fit for me.

The summer after high school graduation could have gone better on the home front. If I’m going to change where I went to college, I might as well back it up to then. And it would be a fun day to go back to.

And there it is: I’d choose to go back to the day I graduated from high school, the primary intent being to change my college years with a bonus of improving my family relationships. The trigger point for the bad stuff was just teenager woe-is-me angst. I would still be displeased with the situation, but I’d also realize it’s only for a short time and it’s not as big a deal as I thought, then. Reconciliation happened, but it took a decade.

Would I not go to UW-Madison? I’m not sure. Knowing what being gay is like (and also knowing that being promiscuous in the 1980s is a good way to catch AIDS and die), maybe. If I were out and about in 1985 and 1986, I wouldn’t be able to join the Air Force, which is a big factor in how I got the job that I now have.

I definitely wouldn’t take Japanese. It was dreadful in several ways. Avoiding that would change the people I was friends with. I’d try to get into the dorms (high school graduation is probably too late for that). I’d do better choosing off-campus housing and roommates. One of the things that was dreadful about Japanese class is that was early (0800, iirc) and I had to walk 2 miles to get to it.

Regis is tempting, but attending a Catholic university while being openly gay is just asking for trouble. I’m not sure I could be closeted, again. Apparently, everyone knew, anyway, so there is very little point in it. But there is a difference between being apparently gay and going to gay bars every weekend – and likely meeting up with guys – while at a Catholic school. Even if I were to go back earlier than high school graduation, I don’t see having a boyfriend at Lourdes Academy (in the early 1980s) as a thing that would go well. Appearing to be gay was bad enough. Flaunting it would probably be a disaster. Although it’s possible it would make things easier (mutual comprehension, at least), that’s not a theory I’d want to test.

One very interesting turning point in my life is my adoption by my second cousin and his family. That happened because the other option – adoption by my uncle and his family – went sideways. There was a time (decades long) when I would have said “badly”, but knowing now what can happen to orphaned kids, it wasn’t bad at all. All in all, I’d say that whole mess worked out. There was plenty of tribulation – on all sides – but I’m satisfied with the outcome. If I didn’t get to choose a point and I popped up during my time with my uncle and his family, I would try to make it work out. I did say I want “different”; that would certainly do it.

There’s really not much point to going back to before my (divorced) mother died. I was too young (eight) to do anything about it, even if I went back as an oncologist, which I’m not. The trope-y “one last time to say I love you” is not an issue for me. My mom knew I loved her. There is nothing to fix in that relationship. Change for the better? Sure, there always is, but I was only eight. I didn’t have time to screw it up (much).

So, the window is between eight and twenty years old and I choose eighteen.

As a bonus, that’s before I hurt my back moving a pool table (1992), which eventually led to back surgery (2014) and a neuropathic foot (present day).

Now to find out what our intrepid hero does in Reborn as the Storm Saint…

Since I forgot to press the “publish” button last night, I can say: He didn’t choose, but he came back at sixteen – two months before the assassination of his parents.

Not related: I thought I was quickly over powering my characters. Dear G*d. By the end of the first book (yes, I read the whole thing, yesterday), which is about two months, he has screamed upward in power and wealth. It is much more a “chosen one” story than mine, though. He’s also in the same world. It is not LitRPG. It’s straight up fantasy. There are magical, professional, and fighting levels, but those exist in our world, too. Before anyone argues that magical levels do not exist in our world, I present this list: witch, warlock, wizard, sorcerer, enchanter, hedge-wizard, mage, magician, summoner. The hierarchy is not obvious, but they’re not all the same, either.