Sitting in bed watching a gas fire in the fireplace I wonder what I would say to a younger me if I could somehow reach back in time. If I could cross the years back to when I was 15 and having one of the worst years of my life.
What would she think of this? What would I say that would sound real?
Right now I’m sitting in bed with the fire going, the fan on, and the window open to let in a chilly November breeze. This is not an aesthetic, it’s because my husband and I have both been ridiculously sick all week and we decided the best solution was to clean our room top to bottom and with the windows closed we were going to get high off Scrubbing Bubbles fumes.
He is in the en suite scrubbing things. I’m in bed with a subluxed rib or two and a dislocated hip. Since I’m having trouble walking he’s the one cleaning.
This is normal for us.
What would my teen-self think of that? Of having someone who didn’t yell and scream at her for being sick? Who didn’t tell her to stop being lazy just because she hurts?
What would she think of living in Seattle and opening the windows in November? She never had a fireplace that worked… do you think she’d like it? Personally I liked the wood-burning fireplace in the Alaska house better. It felt more real somehow. But plasma is plasma.
I’m sitting in bed writing not on pen and paper, and not on a laptop, but on a folding keyboard that hooks up to my phone via bluetooth.
Smartphones… there’s an interesting thing to try to explain to someone in the 1990’s. Where do you start that conversation?
One of my favorite activities is playing the Supercell games Clash of Clans and Clash Royale. I’m a Clan Leader for one and a Co-leader on the other. My kids asked if I played when I was younger. They can’t quite understand that when I was younger not only did these games not exist, but apps didn’t exist.
I remember when “There’s an app for that!” was a funny phrase because, of course, there wasn’t. Now there is.
What would my younger self think of these changes? At fifteen she was living an almost tech-less life. No real computer. The one TV in the house was bought in the 80’s and the colors had faded so it showed black, white, and grayish-green. There were only a few channels, mostly BBS and MASH reruns. And Xena on Saturday afternoons.
The only phone had a line plugged to the wall. The area code was 303, but I’ve forgotten the rest. My teen-self could rattle off the phone numbers of all her friends, her school, her parents, and her grandparents without thinking. Now I can’t remember much more than my number and my husband’s.
I’m a writer now. At fifteen I was going to be a marine biologist, maybe a journalist, possibly a marine biologist in space, but I knew for sure boats and SCUBA diving were a must. My favorite thing to wear was a one-piece, racer-back swimsuit and a pair of shorts. I was always ready for the water.
Life happened. I have my degree in marine biology. I am licensed for SCUBA. But circumstances and choices led me down another path. My favorite author now is Liana Brooks, someone who didn’t exist when I was fifteen. I made her up, like the rest of my stories.
Teenage Me would love her books though. I know that for sure. I was always a voracious reader. I devoured Tolkien and Pratchett, Butcher and Andrews, McCaffery and Salvatore, Asimov and Campbell. All the greats of science fiction and fantasy. I’d loved the adventure, the wild twists, and high stakes and breath-taking payoff.
Still do.
Maybe that’s what we’d talk about, if I met my younger-self today. Maybe I could tell her about the books she’ll get to read. The time she’ll get to actually meet R.A. Salvatore and other giants of fiction.
“One day you’ll chat with Robin Hobb,” I’ll say.
“Wait, like, THE Robin Hobb?” my younger-self would stare. “How does that happen?”
At fifteen I’d never heard of comic cons. Geek culture had missed me somehow, aside from the books, but I think it would be worth it. To tell her all the fun things that are coming.
I’d skip some of the hard stuff. The heartbreaks and hungry days. The funerals and failings. The times I laid in the darkness wondering if it wouldn’t be better to never wake up again.
It makes me wonder what an older me would say looking back at me today.
I’m in pain, you see. Quite a lot of it. And a terrible quirk of my genetic makeup means pain medications don’t usually work for me. There’s no little pill that will make the pain go away.
So what will Older Me say?
Will she tell me this is the last good day?
Will she say it’s all downhill from here?
I’ve thought that many times before and somehow survived to find new levels of normal. New ways of being happy even if my health and life aren’t exactly what I planned on.
Would an older me look back and smile, then tell me about the great things that are still to come?
Will I ever get that series I love published? Did I finally finish it? Did my readers love it?
What about my kids… how are they doing, Older Self? Are they happy? Are they healthy?
My husband? Is he as wonderful and amazing in twenty years as he is today? Have we weathered the ups and downs with a smile? Did we ever get that honeymoon we’ve been planning for seventeen years?
Maybe by our 50th anniversary we’ll have found a way to take a little break.
Tomorrow is another day. It might be awful. It might be wild. It might be wonderful.
Whatever it is, it’ll be fun to find out what tomorrow brings.
Love watching movies !