The concept of time travel has always fascinated me. I’m not sure, but I think it started some time in grade school, probably from watching The Twilight Zone. One of the first short stories I ever wrote had a time travel twist. Now, I go to time travel movies; I read time travel books; I watch time travel television shows. Currently I’m reading The Return of the Indian to a fourth grade classroom (I volunteer for Read Aloud West Virginia) and I just last night watched the first two episodes of season four of Quantum Leap. (Thanks to my generous neighbor Ann who owns the complete DVD collection of that show. Yum!)
Several years ago I was visiting my hometown while reading The Time Traveler’s Wife. There are several scenes in that book where the time traveler interacts with himself at various ages. Being in Lincoln in the neighborhood where I grew up got me to thinking, what if I went for a walk and bumped into my 15-year old self … what would I say to her?
Would I warn her to not get married at 19? Would I tell her to buy stock in Microsoft? Would I beg her to finish college? It seemed like there were so many things I could let her in on that would ultimately result in my life being … being what? Less marred with error? Richer? Happier? Better?
But maybe not. Maybe it would just be different. Maybe not better at all!
There were important lessons I learned from all the choices I made–good and bad. They were lessons I could never learn any way but by living my life. No one could tell me those things, not even my older self! I wouldn’t have believed me, anyway. I know me. I’m skeptical, wary, and slow to trust a stranger, even one who looks just like … uh … my mother and my father blended and then aged. Hmmmm. I’m pretty sure I would have quizzed such a being long and hard before listening.
But if I had somehow convinced her, what would I have said? The best I could come up with was to simply tell her that she was smarter, stronger, and more courageous than she realized. I suppose my 99-year-old self would be telling me that now, too!
So, what would you tell your teenage self if you met her on the street?
