Reader Question #2

Obviously I am not answering these in the order in which they were received. Nivlak requested the following entry topic:

If you had a time machine what three things would you go back and change and what three things would you make happen for the future.

So. If I had the ability to go back in time:

1. I would not have married my ex.
2. I would have finished college right out of high school.
3. I would have lived at home with Grandma until her passing.

The first one’s pretty easy - the only good thing that came out of my relationship with my ex was moving to Arizona so I could meet Calvin. That, and learning to balance the checkbook. So to say I would not have married my ex, is to assume that I would have wound up in Arizona some other way to meet Calvin. Calvin and I = meant to be. My ex and I = heap big whopping mistake from hell. So if some deity came to me and said that there was no other way to meet Calvin but to be married to this other bozo for six years, well, I still would have done it. Otherwise? NOT.

The second one stems from my frustration with how many years it’s taking to finalize my degree. Part of it is my own lazy fault, part of it is AcronymCo’s fault for changing the tuition reimbursement rules. There are times when I wish that I had had the traditional “college experience” with dorm living and all night studying and roommates and toga parties (”Boon, I anticipate a deeply religious experience.”) Then I reflect upon my lack of outstanding student loans, and it cheers me.

The third one is a struggle. There is still a lot of guilt inside me about how Grandma passed. Oh, not that it was shady or suspicious or anything like that. No, I just know, based on multiple conversations with my Grandmother over the years, that she wanted to die at home, dignified in her own bed. Instead she had a series of strokes, developed dementia, got shuffled around to various nursing homes, and ended up in an “end-care” home hopped up on ever-increasing dosages of Morphine, until she finally passed. If I had been there when she had her original strokes, she wouldn’t have lied in bed for a couple of days (we think) before a neighbor checked on her, saw her through the window, and called me (three thousand miles away) to ask permission to break into the house when Grandma wouldn’t stir or answer the door. THAT is a suck feeling, that knowledge that I was so far away and couldn’t do anything. If I had been there, I could have gotten her help much more quickly. The strokes wouldn’t have caused so much damage. I could have cared for her in her own home, and maybe she would have been more there, more herself, up to her final days. A lot of “what if’s” and “if only’s”, but there it is.

Now, if I had the ability I would guarantee the following for the future:

1. Find out which oh-my-God winning stock to invest in so that by the time Calvin and I are ready to retire, we’re millionaires.
2. Because of the aforementioned money, moving back to Maine at some point would be guaranteed.
3. Also because of the aforementioned money, we can ensure that Michael and Marie would be able to have nice homes and college educations, we would be able to secure our extended family member’s futures (pay off bills for them, etc.), and we would be able to spoil our friends rotten.

There is, of course, the whole “world peace” and “solve world hunger” issues that I would like to help out on. So any of those three goals might be circumvented if I could figure out how to secure these things for the future. Bigger minds than mine have tried and failed, so I stuck with the shallow, personal wishes for the future.

These things also apply if I find out that Calvin and I are, you know, alive in the future. If I find out otherwise and it’s because we drank too much or partied too hard or ate too much bacon or sucked in too much second hand smoke or was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got ourselves kilt, well, I would do things in the present to change that future.

Great question!  I still welcome any other suggestions for entry topics, and will answer the others that have already been posted probably by the end of the weekend.