Time Traveling (with Restrictions)

I'm cleaning furiously in preparation for my Lost party tonight, so today's entry will be short. But it's about something that's been on my mind for a while and kind of ties in to yesterday's post about superpowers. One commenter asked if I considered the ability to time travel a superpower, which I do not (simply because characters always seem to need a device to time travel, rather than having the innate ability to do so, and because I've never seen that be the power of any comic book hero--let me know if I'm wrong).

Since I love science fiction, and since one of my favorite books is The Time Traveler's Wife, and since one of my favorite movies is Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, I have thought about time travel probably more than the average person has. I have decided that if a time machine were ever created, it would be a really bad thing. Look at all the problems it caused for poor Marty McFly! I don't think I would want to time travel if I were given the chance, but if I could perhaps just watch certain events in my life over again, I would jump at the opportunity. At the top of my list of events that I would want to witness again are the first times I met all of my close friends, and of course, my husband. Once you've been close to someone for years, or decades in some cases, it's really hard to imagine your life without that person. Similarly, once you've gotten to be good friends with someone, it's hard to believe that at one point you both acted all awkward around each other--or that maybe you didn't even like each other in the beginning of your relationship.

So I think it would be extremely cool to refresh one's memory about how all those first encounters went down. I've known Nerdy P since I've been a baby, and I think it would be awesome to see our parents in their groovy 70s clothes introducing us. I met DY on what I think was the first day of band class in junior high when I was all scarred up from a freak pedal car accident and totally self-conscious, but she was able to look past my grotesque oozing scabs. It would be hilarious to watch that initial conversation again. I don't even know how I originally met some of my other lifelong friends ... with one of my bridesmaids, SG, I know it was probably in third grade, but I have no memory of our first chat. So those are the type of moments I would like the ability to live over as a silent witness.

Then I would be able to prove to my husband once and for all that I asked him out, and not the other way around!

- e